cacophonycat Posted May 16 Share Posted May 16 (edited) Hi, I've been friends for several months with a player who has a stalker. I've seen screenshots several times of the player (same legacy name each time), making characters with names similar to my friend's out-of guild friends, and then going to our guild members via whisper to ask "how are they doing" and trying to get information on them. According to my friend and others, the same player has been doing this for close to 4 years. It hasn't stopped. Since my friend goes to some open-world events, the stalker will often try to find out which guilds are going to what events to show up and often members of our guild have to literally converse with the stalker to distract them so my friend can leave the area or otherwise continue on with the content. They were actually pretty horrible in the beginning before my friend legacy ignored, them, but this person is persistent and even after being suspended for it before has come back to persist. Honestly, it's gotten to the point that the guild members feel harrassed and either the guild and all the players who know my friend, and my friend will have to change their characters names or legacy names to just avoid this person who has their legacy names and character names. IT also effects members of guilds my friend RPs with as the stalker has approached people in other guilds. So despite all the reports the guild members have submitted, and others have submitted, nothing has been done about this person and it's going on close to 4 years now. Some of them have shown screenshots of what has happened over at least two years, though not all the times the stalker came to others were they reported. So what can we do because the stalker is saavy enough to know close to two dozen players legacy names and the characters they play, plus the guilds they are in to approach JUST to stalk my friend? What can we do? Edited May 16 by cacophonycat clarifying language Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cacophonycat Posted May 16 Author Share Posted May 16 I've seen first hand proof of this, having attended various open world events with my friend, and having seen the screenshots. There's been no way to avoid this person because tehy go after people who don't have them legacy ignored, and are always finding guild members or members of affiliated guilds who don't have them ignored to approach. Even unguilded alts of players in the guild or affiliated guilds have been approached by this person because all you need to do is hit legacy ignore to see the legacy name and basically keep a list of all legacies in a guild that my friend hangs out with. It's the only way this stalker would be able to keep this close tabs on my friend. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cacophonycat Posted May 16 Author Share Posted May 16 (edited) I'm concerned, because I've been in VC when my friend has had a panic attack from seeing the stalker appear at events, and is having to make the decision to delete an account they've had from nearly the start of the game over a problem that shouldn't be occurring within the gaming community. Several guild members recently were telling them to pursue this as a cyberstalking case, get a lawyer, and report it to the authorities. However, I think there's still a better resolution for this considering the level of apathy and distrust over the lack of resolution has made many members wary of contacting support any further. I'd beg to differ, that customer support for the game can still help, and I hope that we can find an appropriate solution that doesn't involve my friend deleting or giving up his account. Not that it would stop the stalker, because they clearly show the inability to listen to "no" and have obsessively been pursuing my friend to the point they'll likely continue even if they do delete their account and make a new one. Edited May 16 by cacophonycat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
denavin Posted May 17 Share Posted May 17 Report them to Customer Service. There is nothing that can be done here. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
voshara Posted May 17 Share Posted May 17 Authorities need to be contacted about this. Four years is waaay to long for something like this. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cacophonycat Posted May 26 Author Share Posted May 26 They've been reported several times to customer service. But about once a month they go around trying to find my friend/ and talk to them. They were recently seen (by myself) trying to ask for credits for a legacy name change in general chat on fleet to avoid everyone that has them on legacy ignore. Not that Imp fleet would give anyone asking for 300 million a polite response or a simple "no". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RikuvonDrake Posted May 26 Share Posted May 26 It sounds like your friend has either a very wild imagination or likes to over exaggerate a lot. If anything of what you are saying is true, just report it via an in-game ticket to CS if you actually want something to happen, unless all you want is attention, then keep posting Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tsteenburg Posted May 26 Share Posted May 26 Also, I might be mistaken, but I believe Legacy ignore tracks changes for that simple reason to avoid people circumventing it. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveTheCynic Posted May 26 Share Posted May 26 Observation: the legacy name being the same means exactly *nothing*, ever since patch 1.3.7 in September 2012, when they removed the restriction that legacy names had to be unique. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrixxieTriss Posted May 28 Share Posted May 28 (edited) On 5/27/2024 at 2:58 AM, tsteenburg said: Also, I might be mistaken, but I believe Legacy ignore tracks changes for that simple reason to avoid people circumventing it. Also pretty sure this is the case 👆 @cacophonycat If someone has another person on a friends list & they change the name or legacy name, it also changes their name on your friends list. So, I’m 99% sure if someone is on you’re legacy ignore list & they change their character or legacy name, the old legacy name on the ignore list just switches to the new legacy name & they stay on ignore. Legacies & character names are linked directly to the account database. The only way anyone can circumvent the legacy ignore is to start a whole other account. Which is more likely what is happening & makes it very hard for customer service to track what’s been going on over the 4 years your friend has been harassed. Because each account is seperate & people can have the same legacy name. CS would need to give the person you’re reporting each time, the benefit of doubt each time if they are on a new account as there wouldn’t be any documented history to back up the stalking on a new account. Each time they started another account, it would be like starting the whole harassment reporting process of them again from the start. Not sure is CS or Jackie can help if the stalker keeps changing accounts to new ones. It really makes it nearly an impossible task to police from that perspective. I’m not sure if it’s possible or not. But maybe your friend could possibly ask CS or Jackie if they could merge their own current account into a new account that renames characters & legacy name. Then they stay incognito to everyone except friends they personally vet as reliable. I had to do something similar to this when I used to play WoW because of a real life stalker who discovered I played WoW online. And was using WoW to try circumventing an AVO. The best advice I can give anyone, is when you’re online, create an online persona you can easily eject from that doesn’t include any real world info that people can use to track you down in the real world or online. I have several of these identities for different games or social media. Nothing about my real life identity is ever posted online. That includes photos, addresses, phone numbers or emails. It really is the only way I know of to protect yourself. Most people will say that’s extreme until they’ve had their identity stolen or been the victim of real life violence against them. And by then, it’s too late. Edited May 28 by TrixxieTriss 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toraak Posted May 28 Share Posted May 28 On 5/26/2024 at 12:15 PM, cacophonycat said: They've been reported several times to customer service. But about once a month they go around trying to find my friend/ and talk to them. They were recently seen (by myself) trying to ask for credits for a legacy name change in general chat on fleet to avoid everyone that has them on legacy ignore. Not that Imp fleet would give anyone asking for 300 million a polite response or a simple "no". If the Legacy is on the ignore list, it should remain there even if the individual does a Legacy rename. It will just change the name of the legacy on the ignore list as well. So unless your removing people from your ignore list it won't be removed. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darev Posted May 28 Share Posted May 28 7 hours ago, Toraak said: If the Legacy is on the ignore list, it should remain there even if the individual does a Legacy rename. It will just change the name of the legacy on the ignore list as well. So unless your removing people from your ignore list it won't be removed. Unless I make a second account, level a new toon up, create a NEW legacy with the same legacy name. Different accounts, different Legacies, same Legacy name. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveTheCynic Posted May 28 Share Posted May 28 On 5/26/2024 at 6:58 PM, tsteenburg said: Also, I might be mistaken, but I believe Legacy ignore tracks changes for that simple reason to avoid people circumventing it. It probably doesn't track changes as such. It probably works by using an internal ID of the legacy (which might simply be the account name, e.g. SteveTheCynic) instead of the player-visible Legacy name. (It can't use the Legacy name anyway, because they aren't forced to be unique, not since patch 1.3.7 which launched in September 2012.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveTheCynic Posted May 28 Share Posted May 28 7 hours ago, Toraak said: If the Legacy is on the ignore list, it should remain there even if the individual does a Legacy rename. Do you have any evidence that it doesn't? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrixxieTriss Posted May 29 Share Posted May 29 5 hours ago, SteveTheCynic said: Do you have any evidence that it doesn't? You could test it. But the evidence with just friend name changes shows that a legacy or friend name change will add the new name to your friends list. So assuming the ignore list works the same way, it should change the character/legacy name on the ignore list too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
voshara Posted May 29 Share Posted May 29 On 5/26/2024 at 12:15 PM, cacophonycat said: They've been reported several times to customer service. But about once a month they go around trying to find my friend/ and talk to them. They were recently seen (by myself) trying to ask for credits for a legacy name change in general chat on fleet to avoid everyone that has them on legacy ignore. Not that Imp fleet would give anyone asking for 300 million a polite response or a simple "no". When I said authorities I meant law enforcement, not customer service. There are divisions that deal with this kind of thing. Like I said, four years is way too long. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tourmaline Posted May 29 Share Posted May 29 There is a guy that has like 5 accounts for his guild and spams people over and over to join on all his accounts. It isn't illegal but should be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveTheCynic Posted May 29 Share Posted May 29 18 hours ago, TrixxieTriss said: You could test it. But the evidence with just friend name changes shows that a legacy or friend name change will add the new name to your friends list. So assuming the ignore list works the same way, it should change the character/legacy name on the ignore list too. *Probably* the lists reference the character or legacy by their internal IDs rather than by the player-visible "friendly" names, especially for legacies(1), so the list will *automatically* switch to displaying the new name with no particular action on anyone's part. (1) Legacies have two problems related to using their "friendly" names: Those names aren't guaranteed to be unique. I have four accounts all with the legacy name "Argentis" on the same server, and only the one that I rename should have its visible "you ignored that legacy" name visible in the list of the player who ignored me. Some legacies don't even *have* names. (But they will have an internal ID...) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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