Guild Wars 2

Actually what you are suggesting is a really good idea

Jeydra.4386:

So there’s this guy who added me to friend’s. Problem is he’s no friend of mine, and I don’t want him to be able to see what character I’m logged into, where I am, etc.

I did some experimenting with the help of my guildmates and this is how the system is working right now:

1) Blocking the person only stops him or her from whispering you. He can still see if you are online, which character you are logged into, where you are, etc.
2) Appearing invisible stops the person from seeing all these things, but it also cuts off all guild chat. You are also unable to talk to your guild. You can send whispers, but not receive whispers.

I suggest the system be changed to the GW1 system, where adding someone to ignore blocks him and only him from seeing that you are online, in addition to blocking his whispers.

Except, if he has game messages enabled in chat, the game will tell him in chat when you log on and when you log off. It will say in chat, Jeydra.4386 is online and then later, Jeydra.4386 is offline. By looking at his friends list he can see what map you’re in. This updates to show your location even if you are set to invisible.

Cheers. ^^

The privacy functions in this game leave a lot to be desired.

Theres been a lot of large backward steps between gw2 and gw1. gw1 functions should have been set into gw2 from the start.

Hey Jeydra,

While the ‘block’ feature in GW2 has a lot to be desired ANet are quite strong on enforcing appropriate behaviour in GW2.

If someone is following you and saying unwanted things make sure you record it all and inform support that it’s not wanted and that it hasn’t been encouraged.

This won’t stop the blocking issue, but in the long run will help you to enjoy the game away from the less balanced people in this world.

Regards

This game has no privacy at all, they really need to do something about it. The “Block” feature should do exactly as it says, not a half-maybe half-block.

SoPP.7034:

Hey Jeydra,

While the ‘block’ feature in GW2 has a lot to be desired ANet are quite strong on enforcing appropriate behaviour in GW2.

If someone is following you and saying unwanted things make sure you record it all and inform support that it’s not wanted and that it hasn’t been encouraged.

This won’t stop the blocking issue, but in the long run will help you to enjoy the game away from the less balanced people in this world.

Regards

I tried that and this is the response I got …

Hello [Jeydra],

Thank you for the update.

At the moment you can block the player in order to avoid contact between yourself and him. You could change servers in order to avoid him completely but other than this there is not much more you can do at this point.

For any further issue we will be glad to assist.

Regards,

GM T-Bone
Guild Wars 2 Support Team
http://support.guildwars2.com/
—-

Sad case

Jeydra.4386:

‘other than this there is not much more you can do at this point’

Well that’s a little disappointing.

I don’t know the complete context however if swearing or other profanities are involved, then ANet should respond to that, even if they don’t care about the harassment.

Ultimately tho as you’ve said the block feature is a huge failure and really opens it up for people to harass/stalk if they are that way inclined.

When you block someone, it’s for a good reason and it should be a 100% block, not the current half attempt we see.

I think I said it somewhere else, but the block function in GW2 as it stands is currently about as useful as a locked door in the middle of an open field.

Bump!

I now have three stalkers, and the amount of time I have to spend appearing invisible is ridiculous.

Jeydra.4386:

Bump!

I now have three stalkers, and the amount of time I have to spend appearing invisible is ridiculous.

If people are harassing you and you explicitly told them to stop contacting/following you. Take screenshots demonstrating their behaviour and send it to support. That way they can determine whether these people should be banned or not. At least as far as I’m aware harassment is a ban worthy offense depending on each situation.

Jeydra.4386:

Bump!

I now have three stalkers, and the amount of time I have to spend appearing invisible is ridiculous.

Yikes… not sure what you do to get all these stalkers but perhaps you should change the way you interact with strangers in game.

Fay.2735:

Jeydra.4386:

Bump!

I now have three stalkers, and the amount of time I have to spend appearing invisible is ridiculous.

If people are harassing you and you explicitly told them to stop contacting/following you. Take screenshots demonstrating their behaviour and send it to support. That way they can determine whether these people should be banned or not. At least as far as I’m aware harassment is a ban worthy offense depending on each situation.

Well they’re not harassing me directly, they’re just monitoring what I’m doing and then posting their observations on the forums. Apparently the first stalker was concerned he can’t monitor me throughout the 24 hours in a day, so he enlisted some buddies to help out. I reported the first stalker to ANet support and got the response above.

Are you sure it’s ban worthy to continue to follow someone even though that someone specifically asks you not to follow him / her?

Jeydra.4386:

Well they’re not harassing me directly, they’re just monitoring what I’m doing and then posting their observations on the forums. Apparently the first stalker was concerned he can’t monitor me throughout the 24 hours in a day, so he enlisted some buddies to help out. I reported the first stalker to ANet support and got the response above.

Are you sure it’s ban worthy to continue to follow someone even though that someone specifically asks you not to follow him / her?

Are they posting on these forums? Report them here too. It sounds like the only reason they’re doing it is because they know it bugs you. In my opinion, the best way to deal with such puerile behavior is to aggressively ignore it and they’ll either escalate to the point where ANet will be willing to step in or they’ll get bored and annoy someone else.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not minimizing how much that kind of behavior can affect your enjoyment of the game, but the more you react the more you “reward” the behavior. I’m a firm supporter of the idea that any type of friending mechanism that allows someone to see your details in the game should be consensual.

Fay.2735:

If people are harassing you and you explicitly told them to stop contacting/following you. Take screenshots demonstrating their behaviour and send it to support. That way they can determine whether these people should be banned or not. At least as far as I’m aware harassment is a ban worthy offense depending on each situation.

I can imagine that the GMs or any A-Net staff would find receiving screenshots of this kind somewhat difficult to manage.

1. A screenshot of someone near my character would not prove to an authority that I’m being followed, even though that player may have stalked me for hours.
2. Establishing that a player can be penalized over a simple screenshot of proximity would lead to great abuse of this power in short order.

The problem involved in increasing the effect of blocking another player is that new ways around it can be found.

I vote on the side of the OP. The idea that anyone can be traced simply because they’ve been placed on someone’s friends’ list as a follower is a bit too chummy chummy for my taste.

Regardless of the specifics of the OP’s situation, I agree: the game should only allow you to treat as “friends” when both players are on each other’s friends lists.

• No information about location, APs, or logon/logoff.
• No support on the leaderboards.

“Follower” should be renamed to “Requests to be added to friends list.”

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Regardless of the specifics of the OP’s situation, I agree: the game should only allow you to treat as “friends” when both players are on each other’s friends lists.

• No information about location, APs, or logon/logoff.
• No support on the leaderboards.

“Follower” should be renamed to “Requests to be added to friends list.”

Technically knowing that someone else is blocking you is information too.

I prefer the GW1 system, where if you ignore someone you appear offline to that someone (and that someone only). He can only tell you are ignoring him if he stumbles across you in the game world, and then attempts to whisper you.

I got this couple of times people who friend me who i never meet , who never said Hi. Didn’t say anything. Then I’m wondering what they want and i keep them there for a week or 2 then block them. Don’t like stalkers.

You sure you aren’t overreacting?
Like I’ve had people trash talking me and sending mails and all, but I’m far from thinking they are stalkers.

And if they can see where your character is, and which character you are playing what’s the worst thing they can do? Unless you are doing something you shouldn’t (exploiting/scamming/botting) there should be no reason to worry about it.

Upham.6137:

And if they can see where your character is, and which character you are playing what’s the worst thing they can do? Unless you are doing something you shouldn’t (exploiting/scamming/botting) there should be no reason to worry about it.

That’s terrible reasoning. A player can want to avoid being around certain other players without necessarily being “up to something”. I could think of several ways that a few people that could make someone else’s game experience really unpleasant if they followed them around, especially with the proximity aggro mechanic.

Aside from that, the idea that you shouldn’t value your privacy because there’s no harm being done to you unless you’re doing something wrong is just repugnant in my opinion.

I went AFK on my ranger back in the days where rangers with bears were the botter’s class of choice. Yes, a had a brown bear because I liked the condition removal for that build. I came back to find players who apparently had decided that I was a bot, trying to drop trains of mobs on me. It didn’t work because I keep my pet on passive and park my character a few feet off the ground when I AFK, and yet they persisted in following me around for a while trying to dish out some vigilante “justice”.

If they hadn’t been able to see where I was, they wouldn’t have been able to find me and annoy me when I switched areas. Did they harm me in any tangible way? Not unless you count ruining a few hours of my relaxation time and causing me to switch to another character I really wasn’t in the mood to play.

Is there any upside to non-consensual friending showing a player’s location in game that offsets the downsides? I don’t mind the “online” status so much because I can see someone I might have played with previously messaging me to see if I’d be interested in another dungeon run or whatever, but do they really need my location?

Upham.6137:

You sure you aren’t overreacting?
Like I’ve had people trash talking me and sending mails and all, but I’m far from thinking they are stalkers.

And if they can see where your character is, and which character you are playing what’s the worst thing they can do? Unless you are doing something you shouldn’t (exploiting/scamming/botting) there should be no reason to worry about it.

I’ve re-read the original post. I can see no over-reaction there. It’s not unreasonable to issue a suggestion that GW2’s blocking system match that of GW1.

I find that the contacts system is fine, honestly. If I happen to be a social butterfly and have a million friends on one character I don’t want to have to re-add them all on another. I also enjoy that I’m able to see what my friends are doing so that if I would like them to tag along with me somewhere, I’ll know whether they’re busy or not before having to ask if they’re available.

The blocking system is however a bit flawed. If someone is blocked, they should be removed from your followers if they’re following you, removed from your friends list, and unable to see that you even exist within the game. Eg. If they search your name it will tell them that “this player does not exist” or something to that effect.
Otherwise, I think that the social aspect of this game has been constructed very well. It stops people from hiding on alts and having multiple personalities. And those kinds of people can be quite dangerous if in the wrong state of mind.

Upham.6137:

You sure you aren’t overreacting?
Like I’ve had people trash talking me and sending mails and all, but I’m far from thinking they are stalkers.

And if they can see where your character is, and which character you are playing what’s the worst thing they can do? Unless you are doing something you shouldn’t (exploiting/scamming/botting) there should be no reason to worry about it.

After a disagreement with a part of Blackgate’s WvW community, I had this guy add me to friend’s, then post here on this forum saying that he had been monitoring me for a week (he’d only done that for a day), that I had transferred to Blackgate only two weeks ago (not true), never log on to Teamspeak (not true), and play 30 minutes of WvW a week (not true). The last accusation was especially evil since in that particular week I’d played for over ten hours. But still some people believed him.

I call that stalking. Malicious stalking. A moderator’s since deleted the post and the disagreement’s since blown over, but for obvious reasons I don’t want him to be able to tell what I’m doing in-game. This kind of thing shouldn’t even be allowed to happen in the first place.

Jeydra.4386:

Blackgate’s WvW community

LOL. Sorry but that doesn’t surprise me at all. I can’t imagine any significant people within the JQ or TC WvW community or even SoR’s for that matter allowing such particular behaviour. The community as a whole would tell such people to put a lid on it.

Do you have to stay on that server?

In any event, I see more and more posts from people that want more QoL updates added to GW2 and less flashy new things.

A decent block mechanism would be part of that.

Pandemoniac.4739:

That’s terrible reasoning. A player can want to avoid being around certain other players without necessarily being “up to something”. I could think of several ways that a few people that could make someone else’s game experience really unpleasant if they followed them around, especially with the proximity aggro mechanic.

Aside from that, the idea that you shouldn’t value your privacy because there’s no harm being done to you unless you’re doing something wrong is just repugnant in my opinion.

Back then, when they added “Daily reviver” there were a lot of people complaining about AFKing for a few minutes only to come back and see other players drawing aggro to them on purpose. It wasn’t because they were apparently botting.
I’ve had people acting like bots while I was watching them and they /say “hey I’m just farming”. It’s not that hard.

Jeydra.4386:

I call that stalking. Malicious stalking. A moderator’s since deleted the post and the disagreement’s since blown over, but for obvious reasons I don’t want him to be able to tell what I’m doing in-game. This kind of thing shouldn’t even be allowed to happen in the first place.

Sounds like a serious case of forum warrioring and I agree they shouldn’t be able to see what you are doing if you don’t want to, but he’s not a stalker if he made all that up, becase he didn’t get that info from staring at his friendlist, he just added you and lied about everything else.
If they changed the block feature at least he wouldn’t be able to say he monitored you when he actually didn’t.

Upham.6137:

Back then, when they added “Daily reviver” there were a lot of people complaining about AFKing for a few minutes only to come back and see other players drawing aggro to them on purpose. It wasn’t because they were apparently botting.
I’ve had people acting like bots while I was watching them and they /say “hey I’m just farming”. It’s not that hard.

They wouldn’t have followed me around if they were just trying to get their daily revives.

The point is why does the game have to advertise my location to any random stranger that wants to track me and give me no control over it? What benefit does it have that would offset all the bad things folks could do with that information?

It doesn’t matter that there are various “it’s not a big deal” justifications for players using that feature to annoy other players. What is the benefit of allowing folks that you haven’t added as friends to see your location? I don’t care about status, just location.

Upham.6137:

Jeydra.4386:

I call that stalking. Malicious stalking. A moderator’s since deleted the post and the disagreement’s since blown over, but for obvious reasons I don’t want him to be able to tell what I’m doing in-game. This kind of thing shouldn’t even be allowed to happen in the first place.

Sounds like a serious case of forum warrioring and I agree they shouldn’t be able to see what you are doing if you don’t want to, but he’s not a stalker if he made all that up, becase he didn’t get that info from staring at his friendlist, he just added you and lied about everything else.
If they changed the block feature at least he wouldn’t be able to say he monitored you when he actually didn’t.

After he made that post I called him a liar. He didn’t respond, but he didn’t take me off friend’s either. Shortly afterwards two more people, also from Blackgate and who spend a lot of time in WvW, added me on friend’s.

I don’t see any other word to describe this other than “stalking”.

@SoPP, I’d transfer off Blackgate if I could, but it does cost 1800 gems that I can’t afford.

I agree that the social functions in the game could use a lot more fine tuning. Recently, I had a long relationship end, and that person has me on their friends list. They haven’t played for almost a year and I know they aren’t going to log back on anytime soon, if ever. I wanted myself removed from their friends list so I didn’t have to see their username (weird what bothers you after a breakup) so I made a ticket, but I was told that they can’t alter that sort of information on other accounts. So…. I just had to park them on my block list. There’s literally no way to have them off of my social lists unless they log in and unfriend me. Pretty aggravating, honestly.