Guild Wars 2

Branden Gee.2150:

So, essentially what you are asking for is a way to have options like “Receive Whispers”:

• From All
• From Friends and Guild Members
• From Friends
• None

This seems like a reasonable feature request.
If Player A is on Player B’s friends list, but Player B isn’t on Player A’s friends list, how does that interaction work out?

Would this also extend out to things like mail?

(Please note this does not mean that this will happen, won’t happen, is planned to happen, and or not planned to happen)

I’d imagine it to work like follows:
all: no restrictions cept those who are on thw players block list.
friends + guildies: I only conside it a friend connection if player A has player B on their friend list and player B has player A on their friends list.
Guildies are obvius, unless they are on the block list for some reason. Then block takes priority.
What you call “friends” but i call “acquaintances”.
This is where Player A has player B on their friends list, but player B does NOT have Player A (yet) on their list.
In this case, Player A has a limited pool of whispers they can send to player B. This becomes unlimited when Player B adds Player A to their friends list.
I’m saying limited, because we also have party chat, map chat and say chat as alternative options.
none: no whispers can be recieved. OR sent.

Now why i propose the no sending of whispers during “none”. This is to prevent abuse.
I’m sure players can think of plenty of situations where being able to send out whispers without getting a responce back would be abused.
The None option would simply be for being AFK and not getting swamped by bots. Or when player A are doing challenging group content and don’t want to be disturbed by player B, who just happens to be a friend who recently started playing and wants to bug their friend with “questions” like “how do i level?”
I do think the None option could have an automated red text saying “This player has chosen not to recieve whispers at this time. Try again later.”

Just some ideas on the concept.

mtpelion.4562:

Branden Gee.2150:

So, essentially what you are asking for is a way to have options like “Receive Whispers”:

• From All
• From Friends and Guild Members
• From Friends
• None

This seems like a reasonable feature request.
If Player A is on Player B’s friends list, but Player B isn’t on Player A’s friends list, how does that interaction work out?

Would this also extend out to things like mail?

(Please note this does not mean that this will happen, won’t happen, is planned to happen, and or not planned to happen)

Friend Listing should have been mutual from the start. If I send a friend request to you, you should be prompted to accept, decline, or block me.

No, I think the follower list system is good. I dont mind if 100s of people are stalking me.
And I prefer it to stay this way, I dont want to add everyone on my follower list to friend list, but its helpful to them if they can see when I am online to contact me.

I’d be happy if I could block and report gold sellers at the same time.

I’ve played other first run P2P games that were much, much worse. You’d have to clean out your block list daily, and often would fill it up again. So it could be worse.

lujate.5432:

I’d be happy if I could block and report gold sellers at the same time.

I’ve played other first run P2P games that were much, much worse. You’d have to clean out your block list daily, and often would fill it up again. So it could be worse.

You reminded me of something else I thought about suggesting. That being those on our blocked list should get their names dropped off if automatically if one of the following happens:

A – The account is perm banned.
B – The true owner of the account reclaims the account.

In the case of A why would we want the name on our list taking up possibly valuable space when the account is gone and can’t harass us anymore anyway?

In the case of B, the name should be removed if account is reclaimed so we don’t miss anything said from said person if we ever do happen to play in the same map or whatever again. Why need them taking up space when there is a good chance they are just like most other players and wont harass us?

Branden Gee.2150:

So, essentially what you are asking for is a way to have options like “Receive Whispers”:

• From All
• From Friends and Guild Members
• From Friends
• None

This seems like a reasonable feature request.
If Player A is on Player B’s friends list, but Player B isn’t on Player A’s friends list, how does that interaction work out?

Would this also extend out to things like mail?

(Please note this does not mean that this will happen, won’t happen, is planned to happen, and or not planned to happen)

My suggestion for chat/privacy improvement: (better experiece from other mmo games)

1) Get rid of follower list pls, when A sends a friend request to B, it shld be shown as “pending” on both till B accepts, not automatically appears on A’s list.

2) When in offline mode, allow us to send and receive guild and party chat.

3) Option to choose to be visible and able to receive pm from all/friends/guild/none.

4) When block or been blocked by someone, both shld show as offline without any additional info

Thanks for your time.

nanomidgy.9180:

Branden Gee.2150:

So, essentially what you are asking for is a way to have options like “Receive Whispers”:

• From All
• From Friends and Guild Members
• From Friends
• None

This seems like a reasonable feature request.
If Player A is on Player B’s friends list, but Player B isn’t on Player A’s friends list, how does that interaction work out?

Would this also extend out to things like mail?

(Please note this does not mean that this will happen, won’t happen, is planned to happen, and or not planned to happen)

My suggestion for chat/privacy improvement: (better experiece from other mmo games)

1) Get rid of follower list pls, when A sends a friend request to B, it shld be shown as “pending” on both till B accepts, not automatically appears on A’s list.

2) When in offline mode, allow us to send and receive guild and party chat.

3) Option to choose to be visible and able to receive pm from all/friends/guild/none.

4) When block or been blocked by someone, the blocker shld be shown as offline and without any additional info (e.g locations)

Thanks for your time.

I have one concern with your 1. That being I assume if the follower list is gone we would be notified somehow that another player wants us to add them to our friends list. This could be used to harass people itself as a form of spamming. The follower list is a good option right now as it gives us a chance to not be spammed by players telling us they want us to add them and we can check it whenever we want out our own leisure.

Nah.. There wont be any spamming, when A sends a request to B, B gets a notification on the pending list with the option to accept/decline, if B doesnt choose anything the request will be on pending forever. Where as for A if he desides to spam or send again, the system will notify “you have already requested to add B as friend”

This is from another game which works really well cos at the moment the problem is i have so many ppl on my follower list i have no idea who they are and when they added me but they can see my online/offline status and locations (as if i already accepted) which i dont want to show to them. Its a privacy issue.
However if 2) and 3) are implemented, this cld be partly solved.

Branden Gee.2150:

So, essentially what you are asking for is a way to have options like “Receive Whispers”:

• From All
• From Friends and Guild Members
• From Friends
• None

This seems like a reasonable feature request.
If Player A is on Player B’s friends list, but Player B isn’t on Player A’s friends list, how does that interaction work out?

Would this also extend out to things like mail?

(Please note this does not mean that this will happen, won’t happen, is planned to happen, and or not planned to happen)

Pretty simple, if a player selects the option to have it be from Friends or Friends and Guildmembers, then followers are filtered out if the friendship is not mutual. A player that does not want to be bothered likely will not have any intention of whispering anyone except those on their friends list or guild members. Most new friendships involving two separate parties with no mutual friend are made via alternate methods of chat, anyways, such as through map chat, party chat, or say chat, due to gameplay similarities.

I can’t see a much more complex system being reasonable. Smart systems that don’t use intense data-gathering methods and resources typically don’t end up very “smart” and subsequently punish players. I know I got my chat locked in a game once by responding with “lol” a few times in a row due to a funny guild conversation. Obviously I wasn’t spamming or botting the chat, either. If there was the ability to just “ignore bots” as a chat option, I think it’d have been done already and probably wouldn’t end up as an “option” at all :P

Branden Gee.2150:

So, essentially what you are asking for is a way to have options like “Receive Whispers”:

• From All
• From Friends and Guild Members
• From Friends
• None

I’d replace the top option with “all but blacklist” and replace ‘from friends’ with “none but whitelist”

Branden Gee.2150:

So, essentially what you are asking for is a way to have options like “Receive Whispers”:

• From All
• From Friends and Guild Members
• From Friends
• None

This seems like a reasonable feature request.
If Player A is on Player B’s friends list, but Player B isn’t on Player A’s friends list, how does that interaction work out?

Would this also extend out to things like mail?

(Please note this does not mean that this will happen, won’t happen, is planned to happen, and or not planned to happen)

I have to agree with everyone that the friends/followers/blocked system in this game is terrible and needs to be changed to a system where friendship is mutual. Blocking should also work both ways. If you block someone, you should not be able to whisper them or see what they are up to in game.

That said, your first question is still answerable under the current system. If Player A sets their settings to only accept whispers from friends and Person A added Person B to their friends list, then Person B can whisper Person A regardless of whether Person B added Person A to their own friends list. Person A’s friends list (not followers list) is what the setting should look at.

Privacy settings should extend to mail.

Branden Gee.2150:

If Player A is on Player B’s friends list, but Player B isn’t on Player A’s friends list, how does that interaction work out?

Assuming both have whispers limited to friends only, player A would be able to whisper player B, but player B would not be able to send whispers back. That of course assumes player A is not on player B’s block list.

Speaking of blocks, people on your block list should not be able to see your online status by friending/blocking you.

Astralporing.1957:

Speaking of blocks, people on your block list should not be able to see your online status by friending/blocking you.

I’m pretty certain people who block each other disappear on each other’s lists.
That being said, I like toknow when someone I’ve blocked is online, so I can look up who the people on my map are talking to ;) Not for stalking purposes.

mtpelion.4562:

Friend Listing should have been mutual from the start. If I send a friend request to you, you should be prompted to accept, decline, or block me.

I like that there can be followers — sometimes people go away and so I defriend them, to clean up my list, but then they have me on my list when they return.

(Not disagreeing with the mutual friend requirement, for features. Just saying there’s a benefit to the current setup, too.)

Paulytnz.7619:

I really don’t understand why there is always people who try to shoot something down or say “no” to things especially when it will have NO negative effect on the game. It really does make me wonder…….

Maybe they just like to argue for the sake of it?

People will oppose anything because theyre argumentative by nature. You can suggest drink water and theyll argue against it.

A long time ago before wallets existed I suggested gold be shared accross all characters and people were literally saying they prefer running to the bank for gold rather than have it shared across characters and they would never use such a system of shared gold.

People are argumentative. Pretty annoying.

Becka Williams.4978:

How about, if possible, another option for whispers from people on map, so that way if you want to help someone, they can whisper you, but only if they’re on the same map as you. As for if someone has me as friends, but I don’t have them as a friend, and I have “friends only” they can’t whisper me. I think extending it to mail might be a bad idea. I don’t get a lot of gold seller spam in my mail, so I don’t think that’s necessary, plus sometimes I mail people small amounts of gold to thank them for helping me and if they had it set up for friends only, I couldn’t do that.

With the Mastery system there will be a Mentor symbol put on the map, showing new players who actually wants to help them out. If new players pm me asking for help and I’m not in the mood, you bet your goat I won’t be replying at all. When the mastery system comes out all I’ll be doing is pointing them towards the player who has the tag on saying they actually want to help new players.

Also; please actually read the thread so you can see where I’ve mentioned this before.

Branden Gee.2150:

So, essentially what you are asking for is a way to have options like “Receive Whispers”:

• From All
• From Friends and Guild Members
• From Friends
• None

This seems like a reasonable feature request.
If Player A is on Player B’s friends list, but Player B isn’t on Player A’s friends list, how does that interaction work out?

Would this also extend out to things like mail?

(Please note this does not mean that this will happen, won’t happen, is planned to happen, and or not planned to happen)

Yep, that’s exactly what I’m asking.

In the event of non-mutual friendship I would suggest that only mutual friends would count. I can tell who has added me on their friend’s list when I’m browsing mine (as it pops up with ALL their details when I mouse over them instead of just their account name and status), so I think there’s part of “finding out who is friends with who” already available. (I really do think that a confirmation of friendship [ie. no followers at all, only accept or deny adding to friends list] would have been a good idea to implement at the beginning of the game.)

I don’t see why having these options available for mail wouldn’t be reasonable either.

And to those saying “oh what about new people wanting help?” there will be a system implemented with Masteries where it actually shows new players on the map who actually wants to help them. Please don’t make me repeat this same info for a fourth time in this thread.

It’s not my personal job to help out every single new player who wants help – nor is it any of yours – though I can and do offer help when I’m not busy, and I like sharing info with players, but it is not unreasonable to want privacy settings. If you want to be able to help new players 24/7 then don’t make use of the settings (that is, if they become implemented).

Hidori.3472:

simple solution to prevent mass whispers from gold sellers:

you need to be level 80 and/or have 1000 AP in order to be able to whisper to more than 3 persons in a set amount of time.

or at least they should get automatically flagged for spam if they whisper to more than X persons in a set amount of time and muted.

furthermore if a goldspammer in map chat gets reported a few times, that account should also be flagged automatically AND muted until an ANet employee has reviewed the flag.

Might possibly have a higher impact on PvP only players who have played a long time but don’t have high AP and PvE/WvW people who have played a long time so they know a lot of people, but they also play on a low, AP alt account. In addition, both of these groups may not have a level 80 char on that account.

I like Hidori’s idea, or at least something along similar lines. Many totally legit whispers I’ve had have been from people I don’t deal with on a regular basis. A good chunk are on my friends list or in one of my guilds, but there are those people that aren’t as well.

One thing they have in common, though, is that they do actually play the game. And they also probably don’t send rapid-fire PMs to everyone within sight. So a restriction that takes advantage of things like that might be all we need.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Hidori.3472:

simple solution to prevent mass whispers from gold sellers:

you need to be level 80 and/or have 1000 AP in order to be able to whisper to more than 3 persons in a set amount of time.

or at least they should get automatically flagged for spam if they whisper to more than X persons in a set amount of time and muted.

furthermore if a goldspammer in map chat gets reported a few times, that account should also be flagged automatically AND muted until an ANet employee has reviewed the flag.

Might possibly have a higher impact on PvP only players who have played a long time but don’t have high AP and PvE/WvW people who have played a long time so they know a lot of people, but they also play on a low, AP alt account. In addition, both of these groups may not have a level 80 char on that account.

This account of mine has existed since release, and the highest level character is ~18, with 273 AP. This is not a good fix. I still much prefer what I have already suggested above.

Branden Gee.2150:

So, essentially what you are asking for is a way to have options like “Receive Whispers”:

• From All
• From Friends and Guild Members
• From Friends
• None

This seems like a reasonable feature request.
If Player A is on Player B’s friends list, but Player B isn’t on Player A’s friends list, how does that interaction work out?

Would this also extend out to things like mail?

(Please note this does not mean that this will happen, won’t happen, is planned to happen, and or not planned to happen)

Perhaps the fourth (or even a fifth) option could be: “Ask me” so that a message such as: “Playername.1234 wants to whisper you. Accept / Decline?” appears.

Taffy Catt.2784:

Branden Gee.2150:

So, essentially what you are asking for is a way to have options like “Receive Whispers”:

• From All
• From Friends and Guild Members
• From Friends
• None

This seems like a reasonable feature request.
If Player A is on Player B’s friends list, but Player B isn’t on Player A’s friends list, how does that interaction work out?

Would this also extend out to things like mail?

(Please note this does not mean that this will happen, won’t happen, is planned to happen, and or not planned to happen)

Perhaps the fourth (or even a fifth) option could be: “Ask me” so that a message such as: “Playername.1234 wants to whisper you. Accept / Decline?” appears.

If this is made as a once-only request – and I mean once-only as long as you’re logged in for the entire session – then I’d support it, but otherwise I’d still prefer my suggestion above.

@Hidori, no, not even taking PvP into account. I don’t PvP on this account either. Gating anything by AP/level/rank or anything will just hurt people playing on their alt accounts or even completely new players – as we’ve seen with the dreaded NPE. I completely oppose your suggestions.

Branden Gee.2150:

So, essentially what you are asking for is a way to have options like “Receive Whispers”:

• From All
• From Friends and Guild Members
• From Friends
• None

This seems like a reasonable feature request.
If Player A is on Player B’s friends list, but Player B isn’t on Player A’s friends list, how does that interaction work out?

Would this also extend out to things like mail?

(Please note this does not mean that this will happen, won’t happen, is planned to happen, and or not planned to happen)

Hi Branden,

Perhaps implement as inclusive checkboxes, instead of a single option, with no selection indicating “none”?

Whisper Settings:
[ ] – Public (receipt from any one, selecting this would check all the others)
[ ] – Friends (people on my friends list)
[ ] – Guild Members (should include all guilds, not just the active one)
[ ] – Party Members (as they may be neither friends nor guildies)
[ ] – Team Members (for PvP)
[ ] – Squad Members (maybe unnecessary)

And then add:
[ ] – Apply Whisper settings to Mail

In your example, player B having added A is inconsequential with respect to player A’s settings. Just because B considers A as a friend shouldn’t grant them rights to circumvent A’s settings.

Branden Gee.2150:

So, essentially what you are asking for is a way to have options like “Receive Whispers”:

• From All
• From Friends and Guild Members
• From Friends
• None

This seems like a reasonable feature request.
If Player A is on Player B’s friends list, but Player B isn’t on Player A’s friends list, how does that interaction work out?

Would this also extend out to things like mail?

(Please note this does not mean that this will happen, won’t happen, is planned to happen, and or not planned to happen)

• I do not think I should be able to be added to someone’s friend/contacts list without my permission, just as I should not be able to add someone to mine without their permission.
• Granting someone permission to add me as a contact also automatically adds them as a contact to my list and vice versa.
• If I remove someone from my contact list, I should automatically be removed from their contact list and vice versa.

These additions would prevent the situation you propose from even becoming an issue and a scenario to account for as there would not be a way for A to be on B’s list without B also being on A’s list.

I would like the following chat command toggles:

/dnd
Ignores all whispers and party requests. Whoever sent the whisper/request is informed that I do not want to be disturbed and that I have not seen their message.

/afk
Sets an automatic response to be sent to anyone who whispers me e.g. “/afk BRB phone call”

Also, the /block and /ignore commands need to stop all communications from a player, including emotes and party requests.

Thanks

Mourningcry.9428:

Branden Gee.2150:

So, essentially what you are asking for is a way to have options like “Receive Whispers”:

• From All
• From Friends and Guild Members
• From Friends
• None

This seems like a reasonable feature request.
If Player A is on Player B’s friends list, but Player B isn’t on Player A’s friends list, how does that interaction work out?

Would this also extend out to things like mail?

(Please note this does not mean that this will happen, won’t happen, is planned to happen, and or not planned to happen)

Hi Branden,

Perhaps implement as inclusive checkboxes, instead of a single option, with no selection indicating “none”?

Whisper Settings:
[ ] – Public (receipt from any one, selecting this would check all the others)
[ ] – Friends (people on my friends list)
[ ] – Guild Members (should include all guilds, not just the active one)
[ ] – Party Members (as they may be neither friends nor guildies)
[ ] – Team Members (for PvP)
[ ] – Squad Members (maybe unnecessary)

And then add:
[ ] – Apply Whisper settings to Mail

In your example, player B having added A is inconsequential with respect to player A’s settings. Just because B considers A as a friend shouldn’t grant them rights to circumvent A’s settings.

I love this idea, and I completely agree with having all guilds one is a part of to be able to pm them as an option (like I’ve mentioned I’m in a few LFG-type guilds and get asked for dungeon runs a few times each day).

I think possibly party/team/squad could be going a bit far though. That being said, I wouldn’t be against it being implemented if it was a possibility.

How long do typical spammer accounts live for? If you can’t mass whisper people on an account with less than 100 hours’ playing time (if you need to at all, for that matter?) then the problem might be solved. Or at least mitigated. You can get a bot to AFK for a few days so there might need to be some progress/AP gating as well.

And if you’re a new player, you don’t need to be mass whispering people in the first place.

Sirius.4510:

How long do typical spammer accounts live for? If you can’t mass whisper people on an account with less than 100 hours’ playing time (if you need to at all, for that matter?) then the problem might be solved. Or at least mitigated. You can get a bot to AFK for a few days so there might need to be some progress/AP gating as well.

And if you’re a new player, you don’t need to be mass whispering people in the first place.

For mass-whispering, sure, but we all know what happened when basic features were locked behind level walls with the NPE. It was not pretty. Whispering should not be one of those.

Instead of trying to put limits on accounts making it impossible to whisper people until <x> is achieved, how about suggesting an option that we can choose to use. That way no one is affected unless they specifically go out of their way to change a setting.

I really hope Anet can do something about privacy settings. I take the steps to block and report a gold seller who is pestering me over and over. And by that I mean at least 5-10 whispers flooding my chat. Then after I report and block them a fresh name starts spamming me directly afterwards.

Whether I’m on EoTM or LA it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t stop. :/

CandyHearts.6025:

I really hope Anet can do something about privacy settings. I take the steps to block and report a gold seller who is pestering me over and over. And by that I mean at least 5-10 whispers flooding my chat. Then after I report and block them a fresh name starts spamming me directly afterwards.

Whether I’m on EoTM or LA it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t stop. :/

Yep, like I said in the original post, I was whispered 9 times in 1 minute, and that only stopped because I blocked him.

It seems to be that either people experience it really badly – like we do – or don’t experience it at all. Either way I’d seriously like an overhaul to the lack of privacy in this game.

These privacy options could also solve another problem. That being sore losers in pvp who feel the need to harass you because either:

A – You killed them too many times

B – Your team lost and its everyone elses fault and not theirs

Yes I know you can block them. But what if I don’t want to block them? Why would I not want to block them you say? Well to defend my good name of course. If I block them they can go and speak in map chat and talk whatever they like about me and I can’t defend myself unless someone else tells me what they are saying.

If we get a privacy option to only allow friends to whisper us I could see the garbage this person is saying about me, defend myself all while having the luxury of not getting annoying harassing whispers from them.

You see this is not ALL about gold sellers, there are multiple reasons why we need more privacy options.

Another example is the incoming mentor system. A mentor might want to have their tag up to help people do a JP or some other stuff but may not want to be whispered about any other thing. They may be running people through a jp or maybe a boss fight/event. Whispers may just put them off or demand too much attention from them especially if everyone starts whispering them with many questions about all sorts of things. Again the block whispers here would work great.

I am sure other people can think up other ideas/examples

I would read the two pages of this thread, but , the half of the first page is… just wow , your all missing the point.
How about , we have the option to block whispers from under lvl 10 , since gold sellers are usually to lazy to level past 2.
And before you all start on about how then new players cant whisper someone for help , guess what , they should take a guild invite, and ask their guildies. Anyway , when was the last time any of you rolled a new toon , and it took more than an evening to get past lvl 10.

I’d like to build on this topic and expand it a little. I am sure that this post will just get buried and ignored but I can but try.

The online presence itself needs addressing.

Whispers

I agree thoroughly that there should be a system in place to give the player direct control over who is able to whisper them.

As has already been suggested, this could be done by giving a player the option of receiving whispers from:

All Players
Friends and Guild Members
Friends only
No one

Additional but maybe more controversial options could include:

Players over 500 AP
Players over level 15
Player with over /age 7 days account age.

note – I doubt these would get considered

Online presence

Additionally to being able to control whispers, I think it’s important that the online stats are looked into. Currently we have, Online, Away and Offline.

Currently, being online allows you to be a part of a guild (ability to write to and read the chat in a guild), receive whispers from other players and connect successfully to the LFG system (I’ll expand more on this later). You also get a little green icon in Guild Roster and on Friends list to indicate you are online.

Being away, as far as I know simply changes your online icon to Orange in both Guild and Friends list.

The offline feature however, is royally messed up. Appearing offline cuts you off from Guild Chat (can’t read it or write to it) yet you still keep the [Tag] of the guild next to your name so people can still identify you as being a guild member.
Now that in itself isn’t such a problem. If you are appearing offline then you don’t want your online presence to be seen so why would you need guild chat.

Except that you aren’t actually hidden when appearing offline. Your location still updates (hover over someone appearing offline and you can see where they are) this is true in both Guild Chat and Friends list.

Additionally, when you are appearing offline (if you log out, and log in while appearing offline) you will consistently (at least this holds true for me) bug out in LFG. By this I mean, all the groups in LFG will be from the Euro Server if you’re on NA

To improve the offline feature – I feel the following changes need to be implemented
-This however could be made a bit redundant if DnD is implemented-

Stop displaying locations (others can’t see where you are)
Stop breaking the lfg tool

Additional Status

‘Do Not Disturb’

Depending on if the above is considered regarding whispering, a ‘Do Not Disturb’ presence might not be necessary.

However, this proposal is similar to the Gw1 feature, it would have a few restrictions however. If you are under the DnD setting:

Still have the ability to use guild chat (read/write)
Still have the ability to join LFG groups (regardless of logging off DnD/logging on)
Unable to send/recieve whispers
Unable to display location (others can’t see where you are)

Improvements to the block feature

Currently blocking someone, is really.. just not working as I feel it should be. I feel if I have cause to block someone I don’t want them to know where I am in game, I don’t want them to see what character I am on, I don’t want them to know if I am even online.

Blocking someone, should immediately stop the person being able to see:

AP
Online status
Character names – account name only visible to verify who you blocked
Location

Even if the blocked person adds you to friends list.

Blocking someone should also prevent them from being able to join a group in LFG that you create.
Obviously if you’re in a party, and someone else makes the LFG, that shouldn’t prevent them joining, but if person A blocks person B and then person A makes a group in lfg, person B shouldn’t be able to join that team.

Additionally, if person A blocks person B, person A shouldn’t have the ability to whisper person B. Regardless of if person A is on person Bs block list.

mashiara.3452:

I would read the two pages of this thread, but , the half of the first page is… just wow , your all missing the point.
How about , we have the option to block whispers from under lvl 10 , since gold sellers are usually to lazy to level past 2.
And before you all start on about how then new players cant whisper someone for help , guess what , they should take a guild invite, and ask their guildies. Anyway , when was the last time any of you rolled a new toon , and it took more than an evening to get past lvl 10.

Miss Lana Too.5794:

Sirius.4510:

How long do typical spammer accounts live for? If you can’t mass whisper people on an account with less than 100 hours’ playing time (if you need to at all, for that matter?) then the problem might be solved. Or at least mitigated. You can get a bot to AFK for a few days so there might need to be some progress/AP gating as well.

And if you’re a new player, you don’t need to be mass whispering people in the first place.

For mass-whispering, sure, but we all know what happened when basic features were locked behind level walls with the NPE. It was not pretty. Whispering should not be one of those.

Instead of trying to put limits on accounts making it impossible to whisper people until <x> is achieved, how about suggesting an option that we can choose to use. That way no one is affected unless they specifically go out of their way to change a setting.

Arietta The Broken.1875:

The offline feature however, is royally messed up. Appearing offline cuts you off from Guild Chat (can’t read it or write to it) yet you still keep the [Tag] of the guild next to your name so people can still identify you as being a guild member.
Now that in itself isn’t such a problem. If you are appearing offline then you don’t want your online presence to be seen so why would you need guild chat.

Except that you aren’t actually hidden when appearing offline. Your location still updates (hover over someone appearing offline and you can see where they are) this is true in both Guild Chat and Friends list.

Additionally, when you are appearing offline (if you log out, and log in while appearing offline) you will consistently (at least this holds true for me) bug out in LFG. By this I mean, all the groups in LFG will be from the Euro Server if you’re on NA

This is yet another reason why appearing offline is not a fix. Thank you for posting this, as I had posted it previously, but it has since been removed. It is so incredibly easy to tell when someone is just appearing as offline it’s not funny.

I’ve read the replies and the way I see this there is two problems

1. “Block” feature is not working as intended (blocked person still can see you online and “stalk” you). This needs to be fixed IMO.

2. Gold sellers spam from new accounts (presumably). At least every time they spam me they use Djhgjh character names and Hjhfgjhf.XXXX account names which makes me think that they are not stolen accounts, they are just new accounts used for mass-whispering. Maybe there is some way of limiting mass-whispering for newly-created accounts?

mashiara.3452:

I would read the two pages of this thread, but , the half of the first page is… just wow , your all missing the point.
How about , we have the option to block whispers from under lvl 10 , since gold sellers are usually to lazy to level past 2.
And before you all start on about how then new players cant whisper someone for help , guess what , they should take a guild invite, and ask their guildies. Anyway , when was the last time any of you rolled a new toon , and it took more than an evening to get past lvl 10.

Skady.5916:

2. Gold sellers spam from new accounts (presumably). At least every time they spam me they use Djhgjh character names and Hjhfgjhf.XXXX account names which makes me think that they are not stolen accounts, they are just new accounts used for mass-whispering. Maybe there is some way of limiting mass-whispering for newly-created accounts?

Miss Lana Too.5794:

Sirius.4510:

How long do typical spammer accounts live for? If you can’t mass whisper people on an account with less than 100 hours’ playing time (if you need to at all, for that matter?) then the problem might be solved. Or at least mitigated. You can get a bot to AFK for a few days so there might need to be some progress/AP gating as well.

And if you’re a new player, you don’t need to be mass whispering people in the first place.

For mass-whispering, sure, but we all know what happened when basic features were locked behind level walls with the NPE. It was not pretty. Whispering should not be one of those.

Instead of trying to put limits on accounts making it impossible to whisper people until <x> is achieved, how about suggesting an option that we can choose to use. That way no one is affected unless they specifically go out of their way to change a setting.

Seriously have we all forgotten about the NPE?

Well of course ANet should be smart about this feature.

You cannot just block all whispers for new accounts – this will prevent legitimate players from getting help and finding friends.

In your original post you got about 10 whispers from the same gold selling account. That means he probably sent hundreds of messages to other players – and this is something to look into.

Skady.5916:

In your original post you got about 10 whispers from the same gold selling account. That means he probably sent hundreds of messages to other players – and this is something to look into.

Yeah that’s exactly why I’ve been wanting privacy features implemented. The system as it is now is not ideal for those of us who don’t want to be harassed. I’m honestly really surprised that this hasn’t been addressed/looked into/inquired about by devs before the 3 year mark. I made this suggestion shortly after release (and a few times since then), but it seems to have been completely swept under the carpet – multiple times. You can bet I’ll be fighting to keep this thread alive til something is finally done about it.

Miss Lana Too.5794:

Yeah that’s exactly why I’ve been wanting privacy features implemented. The system as it is now is not ideal for those of us who don’t want to be harassed. I’m honestly really surprised that this hasn’t been addressed/looked into/inquired about by devs before the 3 year mark. I made this suggestion shortly after release (and a few times since then), but it seems to have been completely swept under the carpet – multiple times. You can bet I’ll be fighting to keep this thread alive til something is finally done about it.

Yeah I feel you – getting tons of whispers is annoying, and broken Block feature when blocked person can actually see you online is annoying too. But they cannot just block everyone from whispering to you. What if some new player wants some help and cannot whisper you? Or maybe your friend that you did not add to your friend list yet? Or maybe you forgot to set your privacy setting back to ‘normal’ and all of a sudden all people have issues whispering to you. They probably gonna think that you are rude or something…

The goldseller issue can be dealt with on a different level without limiting everyone else.

Skady.5916:

What if some new player wants some help and cannot whisper you? Or maybe your friend that you did not add to your friend list yet? Or maybe you forgot to set your privacy setting back to ‘normal’ and all of a sudden all people have issues whispering to you. They probably gonna think that you are rude or something…

If you actually read the thread you will find out a lot.

Miss Lana Too.5794:

And to those saying “oh what about new people wanting help?” there will be a system implemented with Masteries where it actually shows new players on the map who actually wants to help them. Please don’t make me repeat this same info for a fourth time in this thread.

Which you’ve made me do again. Congratulations.

It’s not my personal job to help out every single new player who wants help – nor is it any of yours – though I can and do offer help when I’m not busy, and I like sharing info with players, but it is not unreasonable to want privacy settings. If you want to be able to help new players 24/7 then don’t make use of the settings (that is, if they become implemented).

To be honest I don’t care if people think I’m rude in regards to not replying to whispers. That’s like someone getting upset because I didn’t answer their text or call. I may have been on the toilet for all they know, not that it would have been any of their business in the first place.

All the examples you’ve put are very specific instances, that are minor problems, that can’t be sorted out with re-logging, or using the mail. Again, please actually read the thread, and you will find a lot of info.

None of these are good reasons as to why privacy functions should NOT be implemented.

Wow devs! Can you add “clear chat log” and “delete this message” conetext menu commands please?

Offline should not be detectable if someone wants to have some “quiet time,” as I do, from time to time. I often get in-game mails from people saying “What are you doing?” or “Why are you set to offline?”

Seriously, it would be nice to change that feature so that the invisible is actually invisible.

Branden Gee.2150:

If Player A is on Player B’s friends list, but Player B isn’t on Player A’s friends list, how does that interaction work out?

Pls bro…

Easy mode.

Player A wants to whisper to player B.
It does not work.
Player A sends a friend request to player B.
Player B accepts, they both are friends now. (They have each other on their friend list)
Player A can whisper to player B and player B can whisper to player A.

This means as long as someone has not accepted you as friend you can not whisper to this person.
Also this should work with sending in game mails too, do not forget this, if you are going to implement this function.

Miss Lana Too.5794:

Instead of trying to put limits on accounts making it impossible to whisper people until <x> is achieved, how about suggesting an option that we can choose to use. That way no one is affected unless they specifically go out of their way to change a setting.

Because they all have holes in them. The privacy options people have suggested thus far filter various layers out until you get to a “general public” – people who have no actual relationship with you, and you’re basically given the choice “allow ALL of them or block ALL of them”.
Thinking about the private messages I’ve received that I was OK with receiving in the past, that would block a fair chunk of them. I really only want to switch off PMs from actual spammers, and I would be more interested in applying a heuristic to do that instead of assuming everyone I don’t know is a spammer. If it’s one I could turn on or off in privacy options, that’s fine.

Edit: Also, I’m not advocating banning all whispering until something is achieved – just bulk whispering.

I still think putting in a filter based on words – if I add a word, any whisper with the word is suppressed. Over time, the spammers will run out of variations of their website address.

Sirius.4510:

Miss Lana Too.5794:

Instead of trying to put limits on accounts making it impossible to whisper people until <x> is achieved, how about suggesting an option that we can choose to use. That way no one is affected unless they specifically go out of their way to change a setting.

Because they all have holes in them. The privacy options people have suggested thus far filter various layers out until you get to a “general public” – people who have no actual relationship with you, and you’re basically given the choice “allow ALL of them or block ALL of them”.

Thinking about the private messages I’ve received that I was OK with receiving in the past, that would block a fair chunk of them. I really only want to switch off PMs from actual spammers, and I would be more interested in applying a heuristic to do that instead of assuming everyone I don’t know is a spammer. If it’s one I could turn on or off in privacy options, that’s fine.

Edit: Also, I’m not advocating banning all whispering until something is achieved – just bulk whispering.

I understand that they may have “holes” in them, but just because they may have those inconsistencies doesn’t mean that we should just add another time/rank/level unlock to new accounts. I think putting a gate on whispers would bring back suppressed memories of NPE (seriously are we all forgetting about what that did?).

If you were ok with getting pms from the general public, then if these settings were implemented, then you would have the option to not turn them on (as I, and a few other people, have already mentioned earlier in this thread). If something isn’t affecting you it doesn’t mean it’s not affecting others. Heck, I’d be ok with blocking the general public from whispering me about 80% of the time I’m online.

That being said, I think having these options AND a pm blocking filter would be a good idea. Sort of like the message blocking feature on youtube. Add a word/phrase into the box, and nothing that contains those words will come through. That way those who only want to block spammers will be able to do so, while letting the general public pm them, and those – like myself – who want to reduce their “contactability” would also be able to do so.

With THAT being said, I don’t know much about programming, so I don’t know how difficult something like this would be to implement.

Branden Gee.2150:

So, essentially what you are asking for is a way to have options like “Receive Whispers”:

• From All
• From Friends and Guild Members
• From Friends
• None

This seems like a reasonable feature request.
If Player A is on Player B’s friends list, but Player B isn’t on Player A’s friends list, how does that interaction work out?

Would this also extend out to things like mail?

(Please note this does not mean that this will happen, won’t happen, is planned to happen, and or not planned to happen)

It’s simple. A feature that has been requested in the past would alleviate that issue.

We should have a confirmation for friend requests. If someone wants to add you to their friend list you would get a pop up to confirm the request. If you allow someone to add you to their friend list it will automatically add them to your friend list. Since both players are on each others list they would be able to whisper each other if 1 has it set to only allow friends to whisper them. Edit: This would also be extended to the mail system, allowing you to only receive mail from friends and/or guild members. This would also prevent players from receiving scam and RMT mail. You would still receive mail that comes from ArenaNet no matter what your settings are, so you know for sure it comes from them.

And if you remove a player from your friends list it will remove you from theirs and they will receive a notification (next time they log in if they’re offline when you unfriend them) letting them know you are no longer friends.

The way the system works is open to abuse and has been abused.

I’ve seen complaints on the forums in the past about how players in WvW can put someone of an opposing server on their friend list and see that player’s character/account name, then proceed to send them whispers to harass them for whatever reason.

I remember the trait unlock debacle well, but there’s a pretty big difference in usefulness to new players between unlocking traits and bulk-whispering a bunch of random strangers.

If Player A is on Player B’s friends list, but Player B isn’t on Player A’s friends list, how does that interaction work out?

That interaction should not be in place. Change the system. If player A didnt accept friend request Player B wont be on his friend list.

Problem solved.
Now it would be cool to fix restrictions on chat and mail. So people can exchange things and talk.

Branden Gee.2150:

So, essentially what you are asking for is a way to have options like “Receive Whispers”:

• From All
• From Friends and Guild Members
• From Friends
• None

This seems like a reasonable feature request.
If Player A is on Player B’s friends list, but Player B isn’t on Player A’s friends list, how does that interaction work out?

Would this also extend out to things like mail?

(Please note this does not mean that this will happen, won’t happen, is planned to happen, and or not planned to happen)

Simple if they’re not actually on the friends list (IE they are a follower on one list) then they’re not counted as a friend when it comes to whispers. If they were actually both friends of each other they’d both be on each other’s friends list.