Guild Wars 2

I haven’t thought about this before, but I agree, these are great suggestions. You should probably make a post on the suggestion forum (because that’s where this will be moved anyway).

You can actually set your status to Invisible without logging in to a character.
You can access your contact list from the character selection screen and from there you can change your status.

Hi everyone,

Thanks for bringing your concerns to us Snow White.
We will forward your concerns to the team so they know about them and have them in mind to improve the game.

In the meantime, please keep the discussion constructive and friendly.
Thanks for your understanding.

lordkrall.7241:

You can actually set your status to Invisible without logging in to a character.
You can access your contact list from the character selection screen and from there you can change your status.

Correct, you can.

But the moment you log into your character select screen you appear online in game and people can start whispering you immediately. No matter how fast you are about switching to offline they still see it. Trust me, I know.

It’s true. My wife’s computer is right next to mine. When she’s on her character select screen, I see her online in game.

Snow White.9680:

2. No one should see your account name until you add them to friends. They party userface kind creeps me out.

3. When someone wants to add you to friends, IT SHOULD ASK YOUR PERMISSION before they are allowed to see your account name and every toon you log on.

I use my friends list to catch botters. If I see someone acting suspiciously I add them to friends list and if they start teleporting to nearby nodes I find their name on my friends list and report them. If these changes would be made catching botters would be so much harder.

I 100% support this.

Recently I’ve had someone start stalking me. It’s a horrible experience.
I know Anet wants the game to be inclusive but sadly there are undesirable people in MMOs.
Due to the way the game works they can follow me wherever I go. They know when I logon. They know what character I’m on.
Even if I block them they can know when I logon to the game.

What I don’t understand is why Anet removed the option from the original BETA logon screen where you could logon as offline. That would solve so many problems.

Please do something about this because, despite that I know we want to think the best of gamers and people, there are rotten apples out there.

@Mirta: while I find it admirable that you’re trying to catch botters, you’re not playing a game in order to police it. To be quite frank, I’ve never seen a friend list being used in this manner. All things considered, it’s rather disturbing that a friend list can be used in this manner, because effectively, you’re stalking botters. Or, to put it more correctly, persons that you believe to be botters (sorry, I’m a lawyer, I couldn’t help myself).

It is quite sad if there are actually people that clearly spend every single moment in-game looking at the friends-list just on order to catch that 5 second window between the logging in and the changing to Invisible. Unless they actually do this, it would be more or less impossible for them to find know that you are logged in after all.

Buttercup.5871:

@Mirta: while I find it admirable that you’re trying to catch botters, you’re not playing a game in order to police it. To be quite frank, I’ve never seen a friend list being used in this manner. All things considered, it’s rather disturbing that a friend list can be used in this manner, because effectively, you’re stalking botters. Or, to put it more correctly, persons that you believe to be botters (sorry, I’m a lawyer, I couldn’t help myself).

well if a botter has a name including different characters from different languages, chances are that without a friends list you will never catch it. I don’t just believe them to be botters, I can see them botting. They either teleport from enemy to enemy or they teleport from node to node. They’re very easy to recognize.
There’s probably people that hate me that have me in their friends list and are stalking me. So what? If you block them they can’t send you messages or whisper you, if you have a phone authenticator they won’t break your account no matter how much they try. There’s no benefit to them to even know what zone you are in.

I know the friends list has a tab called ‘followers.’ You can click on this to see who’s added you but isn’t on your list. Can you block them from there? or delete them from followers?

Buttercup.5871:

you’re stalking botters. Or, to put it more correctly, persons that you believe to be botters (sorry, I’m a lawyer, I couldn’t help myself)

I doubt that you’re a lawyer when you consider the 1-2minute checking of suspicious behaviour on a non-person to be “stalking”.

Stalking requires that you be following an individually closely for long periods of time, performing the action regularly on that same individual and/or harassing them.

When you see what looks like a person appear on a mining/logging/gathering node (but aren’t sure if they teleported there), adding them to friends to see achievement points (they’d normally have very few if they were a botter) and to be able to properly report that person when they inevitably disappear. Where that person’s name disappears, you’re unable to remember it but you might have their display name (not their email address, password or any other sensitive information) and the option to click the report button.

It’s not stalking, it’s not outrageous and it’s in no way negative to do this from time to time.

I’m sure that something does need to be altered with the friends list, either that or names need to have only very basic characters without accents in them so that reporting a person without having their account in your friends list would be easier.

Darth Llama.9217:

I know the friends list has a tab called ‘followers.’ You can click on this to see who’s added you but isn’t on your list. Can you block them from there? or delete them from followers?

The ability to remove followers would be pretty handy actually, I don’t think it exists currently however.

lordkrall.7241:

It is quite sad if there are actually people that clearly spend every single moment in-game looking at the friends-list just on order to catch that 5 second window between the logging in and the changing to Invisible. Unless they actually do this, it would be more or less impossible for them to find know that you are logged in after all.

You can toggle on “game messages” in options. It will tell you in chat any time a person you have on your friend’s list logs in or out. It lets you know when they are still on the character selection screen so if they choose invisible at that point, you still know they are on.

The simplest fix seems to be to keep everyone invisible until they actually enter the game world. This way, the login as invisible option would actually serve a purpose.

That said, if people are actually stalking/harassing you, you should report them.

If you have someone stalking and harassing you make sure to block and report them. If they persist send a ticket to support I’m sure they will be able to help you somehow.

I think part of the issue is that while reporting someone stalking you might resolve the problem, it wouldn’t be possible with the system as it is.

I agree that its rather disturbing that people I’ve never met or even spoken to can follow me through all my different characters without my knowledge.

Adding someone to your friends list without their consent is somewhat acceptable, as long as I have the option to remove them later or appear offline at will. If I cannot block people from seeing my information, then I should have the ability to deny it to them preemptively.

Fay.2735:

If you have someone stalking and harassing you make sure to block and report them. If they persist send a ticket to support I’m sure they will be able to help you somehow.

It’s most likely not someone “harassing” them.

It’s more likely that it’s a clingy guild member or friend…I know the feeling, lol.

It could also be a person from a pug that uses his friends list as a personal lfg.

I do agree, this needs to be addressed, but in all honesty it’s not a huge priority.

Don’t think a lot of ppl realize just how visible you still are when you block someone. Or how easy the game’s mechanics make stalking.

Ppl can still see when u logon even if you’ve blocked them. That’s a major flaw in design.

We need:
- need to confirm friend requests.
- logon as offline
- blocked means u actually appear offline
- appearing offline doesn’t still show changes of location/character/achievements etc
- individualized status modes (appear online to certain people)

Thanks

Snow White.9680:

1. There should be a way to LOG IN invisible. And when you’re invisible, your location should NOT update!!!!!

This is the biggest one for me. I think just adding these two things would go a long way to fix the issue of unwanted stalking.

Also other players can see my character!!! Please remove this, they can see me!!!

You can also invite people to a guild when they’re offline, allowing you to see other information such as what server they’re on. (the friends list only shows what zone they’re in)

Healix.5819:

You can also invite people to a guild when they’re offline, allowing you to see other information such as what server they’re on. (the friends list only shows what zone they’re in)

Wow, thats crazy too!

Ok, I understand all of this, but since you are not blocking individual characters but instead complete accounts – someone who is blocked cannot contact you in any way.

Or am I mistaken in that regard?

You are correct, they cannot contact you if they are blocked, but they still have access to all your information and can chose to find you and follow you around.

Yes, this happens.

I think it would be alot better if you just appeared offline to someone you block.

Sovta.4719:

Also other players can see my character!!! Please remove this, they can see me!!!

Funny. It’s a real problem. Trying to make light of it just makes u look a lil silly tbh.

Snow White.9680:

You are correct, they cannot contact you if they are blocked, but they still have access to all your information and can chose to find you and follow you around.

Yes, this happens.

I think it would be alot better if you just appeared offline to someone you block.

Exactly this. I’ve had someone follow me to 2 servers chasing me……just based off of information that they have no right to have.

I agree this should be fixed. You should agree to other players before they are added to your friends list and tracking should be limited, very limited and allow blocking.

Would definitely be an easier option than to have to report those people.

Weird. Good luck to anyone who has seemingly very persistent “friends”.

I feel left out, why am I not being stalked?

Serious note though, I agree that there should be the addition of: Blocked means they can’t see any information about you, or always appear offline in every regard. Even achievement points come up as nothing.

As far as the :must confirm friends, I dunno…they must have had some reason for adding the follower system. Not sure what it was, but it’s there. Maybe stalking to an extent was an intention.

Akari Storm.6809:

I feel left out, why am I not being stalked?

Serious note though, I agree that there should be the addition of: Blocked means they can’t see any information about you, or always appear offline in every regard. Even achievement points come up as nothing.

As far as the :must confirm friends, I dunno…they must have had some reason for adding the follower system. Not sure what it was, but it’s there. Maybe stalking to an extent was an intention.

The positive thing about beeing able to add people without permission is that you can add people who are offline so that you can contact them when they come back on. Not everyone adding you to his/her friendlist must be a stalker.

However I’d like to get a short info if someone is adding me to his fl and I would like to be able to decide who get information where I am and when I’m online.

@Majora: That’s not the point for me. I am not stalked by anyone but if so I would not have many options to stop it. And beside that I would like to choose myself who gets to know where and when I am in the game.

Snow White.9680:

It is FAR too easy to stalk someone in this game.

-People can add you to friends without your knowledge or permission and see everything about you.

- Even if you BLOCK someone, they can still see if you’re online, (via their friendslist) what toon you’re on and where you are in the world.

- There is no option to sign in invisible. So if an unstable person has friended you, and sees you log in and then quickly switch to offline. They start sending you in-game mail calling you out.

- If you appear offline, people can still watch you and see if you move locations.

All this stuff needs to be corrected!

I propose:

1. There should be a way to LOG IN invisible. And when you’re invisible, your location should NOT update!!!!!

2. No one should see your account name until you add them to friends. They party userface kind creeps me out.

3. When someone wants to add you to friends, IT SHOULD ASK YOUR PERMISSION before they are allowed to see your account name and every toon you log on.

4. When you block someone…they should see you as offline. Always. They should have NO information about you ever again until you unblock them. Not even what server you’re on.

Anet, I’m begging you to please do something about these major privacy issues.

Thanks for reading guys, let me know if i missed anything.

now people can see your name (if you happen to be on the top 100) in the leaderboards, I personally don’t like that feeling. I’d like to get 6000 achieve pts but then I’d have tons of internet publicity….feels like of awkward to me?

I wonder how many will add you to their friends list after this thread, just on order to “stalk” you btw ^^

Majora.6028:

You people are overly dramatic and ridiculous. Don’t go around being rude to everyone, and you won’t have to worry about anyone “stalking” you, as you put it.

I’ve got well over 1300 hours in this, and I’ve yet to have someone watching me, and the second I come online send me a mail and harass me.

Why would I want to log in “offline”? I’m online, get over it.

Actually, I’ve very helpful and nice to people online.

I have over 30 followers and I find the whole concept really creepy.

I have had people mail me asking why I’m appearing offline.

If I block these people, they can still see I’m online. They can travel to my server and location and find me.

It’s not unreasonable to want a blocked person to see you as offline with no information showing. It hurts no one. It only protects.

And considering they already have the appear offline option in game, I wouldn’t say it’s unreasonable to ask them to tweak it a tiny bit so that you can log in offline.
Right now, It only hurts peoples feelings when they see you log on, and then quickly off again.

Majora.6028:

You people are overly dramatic and ridiculous. Don’t go around being rude to everyone, and you won’t have to worry about anyone “stalking” you, as you put it.

I’ve got well over 1300 hours in this, and I’ve yet to have someone watching me, and the second I come online send me a mail and harass me.

Why would I want to log in “offline”? I’m online, get over it.

Online stalking, in mmo’s and otherwise, is very real, and should not be dismissed or minimized; it’s not “overly dramatic,” nor is it “ridiculous.” If it ever happened to you, I imagine you’d understand.

Stalking is definitely griefing, and IMO, ANet should make a few tweaks to the UI here.

Maybe I’m missing something, but we’re talking about ‘stalking’ in-game?
Why is this an issue?
This isn’t the real world, they don’t know you, they just follow some pixels in game. There is nothing they can do to you, or your character, except annoy you, and that’s only if you let them.

Just go about your daily business as though they’re just another random npc or something – worrying about this stuff, or giving any sort of feedback to people like that (i.e. saying “leave me alone” or “stop following me”) only gives these people the attention they want, and lets them know that they have an effect on you.
Just ignore them, they’ll get bored and go away.

Mirta.5029:

Snow White.9680:

2. No one should see your account name until you add them to friends. They party userface kind creeps me out.

3. When someone wants to add you to friends, IT SHOULD ASK YOUR PERMISSION before they are allowed to see your account name and every toon you log on.

I use my friends list to catch botters. If I see someone acting suspiciously I add them to friends list and if they start teleporting to nearby nodes I find their name on my friends list and report them. If these changes would be made catching botters would be so much harder.

ANet has seemed to have been doing a pretty good job at catching botters—but beyond that, automated video game playing is way, way less important than human safety.

ZenonSeth.5739:

Maybe I’m missing something, but we’re talking about ‘stalking’ in-game?
Why is this an issue?
This isn’t the real world, they don’t know you, they just follow some pixels in game. There is nothing they can do to you, or your character, except annoy you, and that’s only if you let them.

Just go about your daily business as though they’re just another random npc or something – worrying about this stuff, or giving any sort of feedback to people like that (i.e. saying “leave me alone” or “stop following me”) only gives these people the attention they want, and lets them know that they have an effect on you.
Just ignore them, they’ll get bored and go away.

you heard it here—harassment on the internet doesn’t matter. Because, yes, a real life stalker could totally not stalk you over the internet.

ZenonSeth.5739:

Maybe I’m missing something, but we’re talking about ‘stalking’ in-game?
Why is this an issue?
This isn’t the real world, they don’t know you, they just follow some pixels in game. There is nothing they can do to you, or your character, except annoy you, and that’s only if you let them.

Just go about your daily business as though they’re just another random npc or something – worrying about this stuff, or giving any sort of feedback to people like that (i.e. saying “leave me alone” or “stop following me”) only gives these people the attention they want, and lets them know that they have an effect on you.
Just ignore them, they’ll get bored and go away.

While I fundamentally agree with you (in a sense that I would just go about my business) – there is not really one good reason why someone you have blocked should see that you are online let alone where you are.

At least I can’t think of one …

it always strikes me as hilarious when people who do not understand a problem (because they have not had that problem) feel the need to take a stance on an issue they aren’t educated about while at the same time being mean-spirited and shaming those with the problem just because they do not like things they do not know.

Whether or not “MMO stalking” or “Stalking on the internet” is a problem, isn’t really the focal point. The focal point is “Why the hell does blocking someone let them see where I am in the world?” They don’t have to know your exact location to be a nuisance. If they’re stalking you to the point where they follow you zone to zone, their intentions are not good. They could constantly talk crap about you in map chat, or harass your friends by proxy.

People shouldn’t have to “get over” or “ignore” someone who’s intentionally trying to ruin their game experience. Regardless of whether or not “reporting them and ignoring them” does anything, the fact that blocked people can still garner so much information about you due to a flaw in the contact list system is alarming at best. It’s like saying “Oh, we’re giving this guy a restraining order; he can’t come within 100 feet of you. But just to make sure he doesn’t come near you, we’re going to constantly give your general area to him so he knows to avoid going to that area.” It makes no sense.

People shouldn’t have to “deal” with the problem, Anet should take steps to fix it. Whether or not you think stalking someone on a game is a big deal, the fact that someone could block someone else and they can see the server / general area is kitten Technically speaking, I’m considering this a bug. No way in hell is it a good idea that I should block someone and have them know my general location in case they want to take the steps to follow me around.

(Furthermore, if someone wanted to talk constant crap about me in map chat, all they’d need to know is the map anyway. Yeah, I could block him, but not everyone is going to have him blocked, and if he wants to spew venom and bile about me to my friends / guild, well, I’d rather him NOT have an easier time doing it than necessary.)

As for logging in as invisible and bypassing the message that shows when a contact has logged in. (Hopefully it doesn’t display a message when someone you BLOCKED / Has blocked you logs in too, that would be even more stupid.) I don’t have much of a problem with the messages displaying, but I think logging in as invisible is a necessary function for any MMO. As long as they make it so it won’t constantly update information while the person is invisible, which is another oversight.

TL;DR: The point isn’t that MMO stalking is going to hurt you. The point is that the design is massively flawed. Some people don’t want their character / location broadcasted to someone they’ve severed contact with (surprise surprise). The point is that if someone wants to dedicate themselves to stalking / harassing someone in-game, as dumb as it is, the game shouldn’t make it EASIER for them to do.

This is coming from someone that DOES have a stalker, who’s stalked me from several sites and games, tries to turn my friends against me, and slanders me publicly. I’ve known him in real life, from years ago, and he still occasionally tracks me down just to harass me. The fact that he’ll follow me from zone to zone and occasionally talk kitten in mapchat is alarming, and I’d prefer if I wasn’t told to “get over it.” instead of Anet taking steps to fix such a flawed system.

Edit: Apparently lots of people still think it’s as simple as “some random pixel character following you around.” They’re purposely trying to ruin your game experience and that’s unacceptable. You can report them, yeah, but rather than solve the problem, the primary focus should be to NOT have the problem exist. Prevent the problem, don’t tell people to “deal with it.” If life were as simple as “ignore it and it’ll go away” it’d be amazing. But it’s never that simple.

Also, appearing offline =/= lol I want to play alone =/= “DON’T PLAY AN MMO.”

lethlora.1320:

Mirta.5029:

Snow White.9680:

2. No one should see your account name until you add them to friends. They party userface kind creeps me out.

3. When someone wants to add you to friends, IT SHOULD ASK YOUR PERMISSION before they are allowed to see your account name and every toon you log on.

I use my friends list to catch botters. If I see someone acting suspiciously I add them to friends list and if they start teleporting to nearby nodes I find their name on my friends list and report them. If these changes would be made catching botters would be so much harder.

ANet has seemed to have been doing a pretty good job at catching botters—but beyond that, automated video game playing is way, way less important than human safety.

Botters only get investigated if someone reports them. If they’re harder to report Anet will do worse job at catching them.

Now, with my previous post said… the “Creepy Stalker Feature” of GW2’s friends list did help me catch a hacker the other day. I had been away for a long time, as had my roommate. So I log on to GW2 and saw my roommate online… which I knew was wrong. Even more wrong? The account he had barely ever played, maxing out at level 16 on an engineer, was running CM on a level 80 warrior with a name made up of gibberish.

Just to be sure, I called him and sure enough it wasn’t him. We immediately got the account back.

So that said, I could go either way. On one hand, it would be nice if they made it a little harder for folks to stalk you. On the other hand, leaving things the way they are lets me stalk hackers =D

lethlora.1320:

[snip]
you heard it here—harassment on the internet doesn’t matter. Because, yes, a real life stalker could totally not stalk you over the internet.

I feel like you’re putting words in my mouth.
Let’s expand:
Harassment on the Internet usually means someone stalking you on your social site account, via your email, or even digital harassment via text messages and such.
That absolutely does matter, and is not at all what I’m referring to.

What I’m talking about is the harassment not of you per-se, but that of your digital character in a virtual world where the person stalking you has absolutely no means of obtaining your personal information (or they shouldn’t if ANet has done their job which I believe they have), or harming you (or your character) in any way.

You can also ignore anything that person says simply by putting them on your block list, thus eliminating anything they can say to you to upset you.

So, please, don’t put words in my mouth to make it seem like I’m dismissing Internet Stalking as a whole, when it is not what I’m doing.

Rouven makes what I think is the only point – that if you block someone, they should not be able to tell where you are. Despite that, it’s still entirely insignificant and irrelevant to your physical and mental health if they have this information – because again, this is constrained 100% within a virtual world, and is not the equivalent to what’s commonly referred to as “internet stalking”

I’m not posting this to dismiss the claims of those who feel they’re being stalked – I’m posting it to hopefully alleviate some of those concerns and worry, trying to explain why there’s next to no way that this virtual stalking can harm you, as I tried to explain.

ZenonSeth.5739:

What I’m talking about is the harassment not of you per-se, but that of your digital character in a virtual world where the person stalking you has absolutely no means of obtaining your personal information (or they shouldn’t if ANet has done their job which I believe they have), or harming you (or your character) in any way.

Who cares about your character? They can see that you are on GW2 and effectively know exactly what you are doing at that moment. That also gives them a pretty solid guess of where your current physical location is at.

A girl who plays GW2 with a violent ex-bf who plays GW2 and is stalking her and trying to catch her when she is home will likely be getting a knock on the door not long after she logs on. The only option atm is for her to just not log on, losing yet 1 more thing in her life she enjoys because the current system favors the stalker.

Tolmos.8395:

ZenonSeth.5739:

What I’m talking about is the harassment not of you per-se, but that of your digital character in a virtual world where the person stalking you has absolutely no means of obtaining your personal information (or they shouldn’t if ANet has done their job which I believe they have), or harming you (or your character) in any way.

Who cares about your character? They can see that you are on GW2 and effectively know exactly what you are doing at that moment. That also gives them a pretty solid guess of where your current physical location is at.

A girl who plays GW2 with a violent ex-bf who plays GW2 and is stalking her and trying to catch her when she is home will likely be getting a knock on the door not long after she logs on. The only option atm is for her to just not log on, losing yet 1 more thing in her life she enjoys because the current system favors the stalker.

This. ^^

Telling people to “ignore them” or to “get over it” is at least pretty insensitive, and potentially even dangerous. Online stalking, even in MMO’s, is a very real problem. With a few minor tweaks, ANet could do a lot to make their virtual world a safer place to hang out.

Tolmos.8395:

ZenonSeth.5739:

What I’m talking about is the harassment not of you per-se, but that of your digital character in a virtual world where the person stalking you has absolutely no means of obtaining your personal information (or they shouldn’t if ANet has done their job which I believe they have), or harming you (or your character) in any way.

Who cares about your character? They can see that you are on GW2 and effectively know exactly what you are doing at that moment. That also gives them a pretty solid guess of where your current physical location is at.

A girl who plays GW2 with a violent ex-bf who plays GW2 and is stalking her and trying to catch her when she is home will likely be getting a knock on the door not long after she logs on. The only option atm is for her to just not log on, losing yet 1 more thing in her life she enjoys because the current system favors the stalker.

hmm. If you had such a violent relationship and have a person tracking you on real life how about you just pick up a new copy of Guild Wars 2, that it’s likely you will do. I don’t see the problem. Not to mention police should know about it and you should have some security at your place. Otherwise the person could just as well wait for you to go back from work at your door step just as efficiently. You could also be logging and playing on your account from a different location, like for example your friend’s house.

Mirta.5029:

hmm. If you had such a violent relationship and have a person tracking you on real life how about you just pick up a new copy of Guild Wars 2, that it’s likely you will do. I don’t see the problem.

A) Because that is unnecessary when GW2 is a tweak away from fixing the problem and one of the only MMOs available that actively ENABLES stalking. That’s even assuming she has the 50 dollars to throw away on a pointless venture C) So your suggestion is that she give up everything in her character that she’s worked on just so that stalking can continue to be easy in the game?

Mirta.5029:

Not to mention police should know about it and you should have some security at your place. Otherwise the person could just as well wait for you to go back from work at your door step just as efficiently.

The police knowing about it doesn’t change that there is danger. And not everyone who has trouble with another person and has their personal welfare endangered suddenly grows a money tree in the backyard with which to fund security systems, new copies of GW2 and whatever else.

Mirta.5029:

You could also be logging and playing on your account from a different location, like for example your friend’s house.

Or she could be home. And him knowing that puts her in danger.

Tolmos.8395:

[snip]
A girl who plays GW2 with a violent ex-bf who plays GW2 and is stalking her and trying to catch her when she is home will likely be getting a knock on the door not long after she logs on. The only option atm is for her to just not log on, losing yet 1 more thing in her life she enjoys because the current system favors the stalker.

Wow, that escalated quickly.
You’re talking about one extremely specific situation in which another person – the “violent ex-bf” – has some prior information about the persons’s personal life, including a GW2 account name, as well as home address (which cannot be obtained through GW2 alone, but must be known prior). I also have high doubts that GW2 would be a stalker’s first choice to track someone when they already know where they live.

However, I don’t disagree with the main point – to not let blocked people know if you’re online nor let them see your location.

Let me say this again: I wanted to tell people worrying about purely GW2 stalking that there’s little reason to worry as there are no means (solely by GW2) for a stalker to obtain your information unwillingly.

People who have stalkers in real life, akin to the the situation described by Tolmos, have good reason to want these measurements (and again, I agree with that), but should also be aware that GW2 is by far not a major point of concern when it comes to stalkers, nor is it even close to a best way to find out some personal information about you (again, see my response above to Tolmos’s situation).

Simply put, this oversight in GW2 will neither give new information to stalkers, nor would it be of major use to stalkers. It’s a minor issue, considering the topic and other associated problems, as a whole.

Tolmos.8395:

Who cares about your character? They can see that you are on GW2 and effectively know exactly what you are doing at that moment. That also gives them a pretty solid guess of where your current physical location is at.

Only if one knows you personally and a top of that knows your IGN. It’s your own responsibility if one you don’t want get’s a hold on your personal identifying info.

Tolmos.8395:

A girl who plays GW2 with a violent ex-bf who plays GW2 and is stalking her and trying to catch her when she is home will likely be getting a knock on the door not long after she logs on. The only option atm is for her to just not log on, losing yet 1 more thing in her life she enjoys because the current system favors the stalker.

Then I’d say she (or he) has enough problems with that person already and RL solutions — safety is personal responsibility, get trained, dog, gun, … and deal with it (if you are in some normal country with reasonable self defense laws tho) or hire security to fix it if not doable personally. Stalking and bullying is “easy” fixable with proper appliance of (preferably excessive) force

I totally support OP’s recommendations and the reasoning behind them. Snow White, you have made great suggestions here and done a great job explaining all the excellent reason for their inclusion in the game (in a very nice, rational and friendly manner, I might add!)

Real privacy controls are very important to some players, it’s probably safe to say many players.

These features are a huge benefit for everyone, because they a) protect privacy and b) protect the feelings of our friends we don’t want to hurt.

I don’t see how they can possibly disadvantage anyone, even those of you who feel that invisible status has no place in an online game. Surely it won’t hurt your game if those of us who want to log on as invisible are unavailable to you for a few minutes or hours. I bet there are lots of other people on your friends list who would be happy to hang out with you during that time.

Specifically, the ability to truly log in as offline is a staple of many social online gaming communities. Two examples off the top of my head — Guild Wars 1 and Steam. This is a standard feature that should not only be in GW2 (which it already is) but also function correctly so that invisible status functions like invisible status, instead of a “Do Not Disturb” sign.

nekitten234:

Tolmos.8395:

Who cares about your character? They can see that you are on GW2 and effectively know exactly what you are doing at that moment. That also gives them a pretty solid guess of where your current physical location is at.

Only if one knows you personally and a top of that knows your IGN. It’s your own responsibility if one you don’t want get’s a hold on your personal identifying info.

So basically it comes down to: “If someone you know snaps and is stalking you, you’re screwed because no game company should ever implement any features that could possibly help someone maintain personal privacy or security”?

That’s a bit… extreme. When the fix is to simple add a single option to be able to out invisible, instead of switching to invisible after logging in.