OFFICIAL NEWS

+1 Absolutely

The crazy conspiricy theory kind of person.

Okay lets assume Vodani is being stalked... How does the stalker know that him/her play Ryzom? If "Vodani" is a word associated with their RL name or something the stalker would know then honestly their an idiot. If the stalker has hacked into the computer and know they play Ryzom and know their user name 1) The stalker wouldn't need to be on Ryzom to harrass or stalk this person and 2) They have much larger issues then people seeing them online.

hrmmm...

I would like to point out that the new feature does not actually add any functionality that the old friends list window did not have. I can still see who is logged in who is on my friends list by looking at the window. (In fact I turned off the notification as soon as I figured out how; I've got enough random stuff appearing in the chat boxes.)

I do understand Voldani's concerns; even cyberstalking is scary and threatening, and if the rl person stalking the rl Voldani is using the login to know when he/she is at the comp, that is information that could be used to harm him/her. However, that information was available before.

am surprised that no one has suggested a name change for Voldani. If there is a real stalking threat, the CSR's can implement a name change as being for a good and sufficient reason. (Unlike, for instance, removing the intrusive 't' in Bitttymacod.) Voldani has lost nothing of the effort he/she has put into the game and the stalker may suspect, but cannot prove, especially if Voldani does a few changes in appearance as well (easily accomplished either by a CSR or a simple visit to the hair parlor).

All this talk of subbing is a real turn off, not only on the forums but esp. in-game...
I don't want to think about real world expenses while playing in a virtual world (if I did want to do that I would play entropia).

Also, don't fall into the same trap that the horizons/istaria player base did--i.e. marketing for the game in return for in-game rewards--that's really really really lame.

I'd much prefer to simply play the game, and then when my character/avatar(bleh those a#$%^&@s)/toon/etc. reached a point where that became relevent, make a decision then.

As for percieved stalking, first ask yourself are they really stalking me or am i just freaking out? If so, ignore works quite well as I have found; after that, simply report them and then the CSR's can monitor both of you =P; they take that kind of thing very seriously. In my experience the CSR's are more ammenable than the "griefer".

Concerning the friends list:
A more realistic implementation at this point would be something along the lines of the client not allowing a person who has been ignored to friend that same person, and subsequently track them...seems more plausable at this point. I'd much prefer the "griefer" being restricted, or having to change rather than the "griefee".

this for soloreaper:
for the pvp flag, do you mean pvp like arena or pvp like dual OR pvp like fighting another with the pvp flag.
I got assassinated once while I had the flag on, but I never attacked that player and it remained; so do I need to attack them and do damage at least once as well??

I am amazed that apparently there are many players out there who don't consider this new feature a privacy issue.

It is definitely a feature change if something that would have to be observed manually by looking at icons in a friends window suddenly changes into a status message that can easily be grabbed by scripts. The hurdle to capture player's logon/logoff has been lowered.

This is ok in my eyes because I can see the benefit for those wanting to be notified when their friends logon.

However, not providing at least an opt-out is careless, to say the least. As a matter of fact, I would have expected that this is an opt-in feature.

Come-on folks, if it comes to spam email, to unwanted mail delivery, unwanted phone calls and other pestering side-effects of companies and individuals trying to make money, most people do agree that there must be an opt-out facility, and a growing population believes this should be opt-in. When online websites suddenly publish private pictures there's an outcry. If google would suddenly publish the search terms and times of all those people who have an account at their site - with the username attached - there would be an outcry, too.

Although this friend list notification may seem harmless to some, it is a fact currently that it cannot be turned off by those who'd like to stay private, and it is a fact, that logon/off profiles of toons can be established.
This is the first thing I'd personally ask the developers to fix asap.

It does not matter if you're stalked or not. Everybody has a right to decide for himself what information one is to publish. The last thing we need is a few more players dropping out just because of ignoring some common sense good practices when it comes to personal privacy.

Try to not make the debate a matter of personal issues.

erm, not to downplay any concerns here, but i think the only thing that the patch did was to allow ppl to friend others when they are offline... it's really a very simple change.

previosly there was nothing to say that a person with ill intent couldn't friend someone while they were online...

so, I think that a micro-update to *hide* someone from a person they've ignored is the best solution at this time; furthermore, the freinds list patch really has nothing to do with Voldani's stalking issue.

Hadriankross: Slight misunderstanding: I refer to the feature that when people log on, their friends get a message. Since you cannot control who befriends you, others can subscribe to logon/off notifications of you.

I dont believe there is any privacy issue here. I dont believe anything at all has changed that would make any difference to anyones safety. This entire discussion is completely ridiculous. If there really was a serious threat Vodani had options other than posting wild claims of privacy issues in the forum over a very small change and then deleting his character because "the community doesnt care about such a real threat".

It was a severe over reaction and none of you should be encouraging it.

I quote Beeficus. Having an option to hide your status could be fine, but the argument about privacy issues is ridicolous.

I think you're falling prey to the erroneous but emotionally very tempting and thus very common thought pattern that goes something like this: "Well this problem never affected *me*, therefore I cannot imagine it being a problem, therefore it cannot be a *real* problem. Therefore anyone claiming to be affected by it must just be exagerating and a solution that would mildly inconvenience me is unacceptable."

If you think the discussion is ridiculous, why don't you step out of it after voicing that you have no problem with anyone being able to see when you log on or off, and leave those of us who do have a problem with it to voice the fact that we do have a problem with it. Why on Atys would you feel the need to convince us that just because you fail to see a problem with it, it's ridiculous that we do?

I personally didn't even consider the stalking issue when seeing this feature, but now that it's been laid out to me, I agree it's a serious issue.

This is a feature that was commonly asked for... it is not a new thing to gaming and it is in many other games. This is the first time I have ever seen someone claim it to be a privacy issue due to the possibility of someone being stalked.

And the reason I didnt bow out of the conversation after stating that I dont believe it really is a serious issue is because somebody used my differing opinion to theirs as a reason to delete their character. An overly dramatic reaction but then again overly dramatic seems to be the trend here...

I would also like to point out that even if its true, how common is it exactly for someone to be stalked in ryzom by a person who is a threat to them in real life? Is it really on the devs to account for such a rare and unlikely occurance when implementing commonly requested features? And if we do expect that where is the line drawn? Im sure there are people out there with severe epilepsy who would react to effects even on minimum settings. Do we ask for them to be removed?

hmm, having read over this a few times, hopefully this may clear up some things:

Irfidel: yes, the message you mention (assuming it shows up in the info tab) would be something that could be monitored; however, I think the ToS prohibits scripts from being run in the first place, (though client chat logging is possible), so, it still boils down to ignoring the person and/or reporting the issue so someone can monitor it.

easiest solution possible: if you ignore someone, they no longer see you in friends (i.e. can't friend you); subsequently that means the "griefer" is unable to track you, whether through the friends list or the info tab--this could include email as well. this would easily keep something very simple from becoming something much worse.

again, at least for this new feature, it is not the patch that is to blame, since it was something the player base asked for; however, the discussion seems to have shown that some tweaking in the area of privacy may be in order--specifically, effectively *hiding* a player from someone they've ignored.

furthermore, some discretion is in order on the part of both the player base and the devs in terms of what they request, and what they implement.

Regards,
Hadrian Kross

I would agree that a feature to hide your online status from other peoples friends lists could be nice for those popular folks who get tell spammed the moment they log.

perhaps something like /hide that would turn off all your guild/status/etc. stuff and make you invisible in chat and friend/ignore lists??

I opened a thread here for discussion on this topic:
http://app.ryzom.com/app_forum/?page=topic/view/11782/1#1

I don't think Guild status should be affected - you elect to be in one - if you're having issues with a member then you should report it to your HO/Leaders and then to the CSRs