I have not read all of the responses, so I appologize if I'm just repeating what someone else has said, but I feel torn about this topic. On one side I feel that players should be recognized from character to character for the sole reason of "public policing". There will be absolutely no way to hold someone accountable for griefing (on a PvE server) since it is supposed to be up to the community to police their own. As many of you know, I am very pessimistic (and prefer to be pleasantly surprised instead of let down if proven wrong); and I absolutely foresee people griefing uncontrollably. On the other side of my opinion of having a shared name/identity with characters I feel that a player should absolutely be able to "escape" the identity of a particular character for a change of pace for a while if they are playing a different character, or they may escape to an entirely different game. Sometimes when you are a good player, you get spam /whispers to join groups, and that would be awful to deal with if you just wanted to do something different.
Add: Or as some people have mentioned, some people could want to RP a completely different identity.
Riahuf22 said: This is a very good point PS and XBOX has always been using the account bound tag since the beginning and honestly not even once did it ever bother me, and honestly for like the whole I don't know 15 years or more I've been using it I've only recieve like maybe 10 negative messages in my entire life and Smite was the big reason for most of them. Now I'm not saying to use our name but an account name like Xbox uses? Yeah why not, it does no harm you can even set up privacy settings so like only friends know your real name, show offline to people who aren't your friends, but even you wrote in chat, or they saw you in game they knew who you were, and I don't see anything wrong with this, is it prefect no not really, but honestly evn though slander can be a big deal, but couldn't you proving them wrong be just as damaging to them. Now I'm not saying we should use account linked characters but we have literally been doing it for over 15 years now, and honestly I haven't a lot of backlash from it, I mean the message saying this and I immediately put him on ignore yeah sure, but I think the whole going out your way to tarnish someone repuation, for one I would hope it wouldn't take just one incident to have it happen.
You have an option to appear offline on PS and XBOX and you can also very easily create sub-accounts if you want to play a game anonymously.
An appear offline function does solve a lot of the "I just want to play by myself today" issues, though it's not perfect as you can still run into people in-game.
It doesn't really solve the problem of harassment, though, as you would essentially need to appear offline forever in order to accomplish that goal.
Chanus said:Riahuf22 said: This is a very good point PS and XBOX has always been using the account bound tag since the beginning and honestly not even once did it ever bother me, and honestly for like the whole I don't know 15 years or more I've been using it I've only recieve like maybe 10 negative messages in my entire life and Smite was the big reason for most of them. Now I'm not saying to use our name but an account name like Xbox uses? Yeah why not, it does no harm you can even set up privacy settings so like only friends know your real name, show offline to people who aren't your friends, but even you wrote in chat, or they saw you in game they knew who you were, and I don't see anything wrong with this, is it prefect no not really, but honestly evn though slander can be a big deal, but couldn't you proving them wrong be just as damaging to them. Now I'm not saying we should use account linked characters but we have literally been doing it for over 15 years now, and honestly I haven't a lot of backlash from it, I mean the message saying this and I immediately put him on ignore yeah sure, but I think the whole going out your way to tarnish someone repuation, for one I would hope it wouldn't take just one incident to have it happen.You have an option to appear offline on PS and XBOX and you can also very easily create sub-accounts if you want to play a game anonymously.
You have an option to show offline on WoW too what'd your point?
Darch said:I feel that a player should absolutely be able to "escape" the identity of a particular character for a change of pace for a while if they are playing a different character, or they may escape to an entirely different game. Sometimes when you are a good player, you get spam /whispers to join groups, and that would be awful to deal with if you just wanted to do something different.
Add: Or as some people have mentioned, some people could want to RP a completely different identity.
That's exactly when I think chat status would come in - which I very shortly explained in previous post. And if someone deserved bad rep he can always apologiese and work on improving his relations with others or buy new account. As for RP aspects go I don't think that would be major issue, becouse if someone wants to RP an "a**hole" verbally - all he have to do is inform at the beginning of the session his guild/party members about it and it's all good with everyone. However if he wants to RP such character not only verbally, but also by action and cause grief to other players - he'd do it in PvP server where other players can take cartain actions against him. On the other hand if he is RP this char in PvE server and is causing trouble to everyone around - he isn't RP - he IS an a-hole and should be treated as such - with all the conseqences.
Riahuf22 said:Chanus said:You have an option to appear offline on PS and XBOX and you can also very easily create sub-accounts if you want to play a game anonymously.You have an option to show offline on WoW too what'd your point?
Next post. Show Offline only solves part of the problem created by having your account linked publicly to all characters.
By saying to avoid harassment but honestly for one if you can truly getting harassed you can report him, as harassment for one is against the law and not only in the game.but also in real life, so if you are truly getting harassed just go through the proper channels and get it dealt with, as for friends if they are truly bugging you to no end because you won't play your lvl 50 cleric than to me they are showing they value your lvl 50 cleric than their friendship with you and that's says alot.
Riahuf22 said:By saying to avoid harassment but honestly for one if you can truly getting harassed you can report him, as harassment for one is against the law and not only in the game.but also in real life, so if you are truly getting harassed just go through the proper channels and get it dealt with, as for friends if they are truly bugging you to no end because you won't play your lvl 59 cleric than to me they are showing they value your lvl 50 cleric than their friendship with you and that's says alot.
You can just as easily report people being bad actors without requiring I am 100% visible on any character I play.
I can't choose all of my guildmates. I have certainly been in situations before where I like my guild but I can't stand a few members and some days I just want to play in peace and quiet without having to deal with putting up with them.
Chanus said:Riahuf22 said:By saying to avoid harassment but honestly for one if you can truly getting harassed you can report him, as harassment for one is against the law and not only in the game.but also in real life, so if you are truly getting harassed just go through the proper channels and get it dealt with, as for friends if they are truly bugging you to no end because you won't play your lvl 59 cleric than to me they are showing they value your lvl 50 cleric than their friendship with you and that's says alot.
You can just as easily report people being bad actors without requiring I am 100% visible on any character I play.
I can't choose all of my guildmates. I have certainly been in situations before where I like my guild but I can't stand a few members and some days I just want to play in peace and quiet without having to deal with putting up with them.
Than you show up offline? And not join the guild? I mean that what I do with my alts, I never join a guild with my alts because they are my alts and I could care less if they are in the guild. Or do they serve much purpose in one only than causing the problem your trying to avoid, you choose to put all your character in the same guild and than complain that you can't hide from your guild? Yeah not hard to think that one through.
And as for trying to RP a completely different identity, in GTA V RP there are many players that RP different characters all the time and even though everyone knows who they are they still treat him as a different character. Now will some not let him do this in a server of 100's yeah sure probably, but their is also an ignore option and you have them welcome it, people are simply going extreme and bizarre situations to make account linked characters look bad, but honestly with the right privacy settings and not setting yourself up for failure (putting all your characters in the same guild) than I don't see much harm in it, and if the other players go out of their way to harass you, or cause discomfort than you can ask them to stop and if that doesn't work and they are in your gud you can ask the higher ups to intervene, and if that doesn't work you file a complaint to your guild master and if that doesn't work you simply report him, eventually he/she is going to figure it out, and honestly I could see most stopping at step one, the account link isn't the big problem it's the player that is, it's honestly that simple , because even if the account wasn't linked that wouldn't save the character that he wants to harass whether it e your main or an alt, if he truly wants to harass that character.
Not in favor of account (or some unique identifier) being visible. Tools will be tools, regardless. Even if someone is on another character and we can't instantly see and say, 'Oh, it's THAT guy again,' it will eventually come out in their play and actions. I think this game is going to require too much of a time investment for people to habitually troll and grief, especially at the higher levels. Ok, so you've camped a spawn, finally gotten the cool, rare item to drop and some Goof ninjas it and leaves the group. Lesson learned. Goof goes on ignore/blacklist/reported/banished to the 9th hell, whatever, and you move on. Sure, they may stay that way and bottom-feed on people who aren't aware of how they act, but that, to me, would be a miserable way to play.
Another reason is it's nice to just piddle around without constant /tells and such. If I've been raiding/grouping hardcore for the last 5 days and want a break, I don't want my 'leisure' time interrupted because my friends/guild need a tank/healer/cc/dps. I'm very much a team player and generally will help anyone with anything in any capacity I can, but sometimes you just need some time for yourself.
Percipiens said:Not in favor of account (or some unique identifier) being visible. Tools will be tools, regardless. Even if someone is on another character and we can't instantly see and say, 'Oh, it's THAT guy again,' it will eventually come out in their play and actions. I think this game is going to require too much of a time investment for people to habitually troll and grief, especially at the higher levels. Ok, so you've camped a spawn, finally gotten the cool, rare item to drop and some Goof ninjas it and leaves the group. Lesson learned. Goof goes on ignore/blacklist/reported/banished to the 9th hell, whatever, and you move on. Sure, they may stay that way and bottom-feed on people who aren't aware of how they act, but that, to me, would be a miserable way to play.
Another reason is it's nice to just piddle around without constant /tells and such. If I've been raiding/grouping hardcore for the last 5 days and want a break, I don't want my 'leisure' time interrupted because my friends/guild need a tank/healer/cc/dps. I'm very much a team player and generally will help anyone with anything in any capacity I can, but sometimes you just need some time for yourself.
You realize this is where the offline function comes in right, I mean it literally solves everything you just wrote down, just like it does on xbox, you go offline, no one knows your on, you play 15 different games, shoot you can even play the same game and more than likely they wouldn't know the better, and honestly even if they did find out, you could simply make a tell box and minimize it and shove it in the top corner of your screen and forget it was even there, again there are tons of situations you guys are blowing out of proportion that can easily be solved at a player based level.
(Full disclosure, haven't read most of the comments on here past the first page or so.)
I think we can agree that we all are expecting to find an ability to block/ingore a character that we are tired of dealing with. What if, VR took that a step further, and allowed us to block/ignore a person's account, but without tell us the account name it is we are blocking? People's privacy is protected, but we have to option to deal with (or rather, not deal with) a particular character, or all the character's belonging to the same account. Say, you are tired of dealing with the character Trollz69 (made up for example). When you got to ignore him, you are given 2 options; 1. "Ignore Trollz69" or 2. "Ignore Trollz69's Account"
Couple this with the option to link accounts on your friends list, if you choose to, and this seems the best of both worlds while minizing the drawbacks.
I find it hilarious that all of these people are crying about "account privacy" while advocating for a system that allows griefers to remain anonymous across multiple player characters, and here is why.
*NOBODY* is advocating for unmasking the real person behind the account itself. *THAT* would be a legitimate privacy concern, NOT the unmasking of the various player characters tied to an account, which *IS* what people are asking for. All I see, from your perspective, is that you want jerks to go unpunished in the name of a faux sense of non-applicable anonymity, which you would still have in the event all of the player characters were tied back to the main account. The *ONLY* people that would be able to tie your account back to a "real person" is the people with the keys, which in this case is Visionary Realms, who, by the way, would know who you are even if your toons weren't tied back to your main account in game. If your account name is 'bumblefoot', do you think that people are REALLY going to think that your real name is also "Bumblefoot"?? If you are concerned that people will be able to tie your account to multiple same-named accounts across multiple platforms, use a "throw away" account name. Easy peasy.
To the guy who isn't going to play if player characters are tied to account names "because anonymity", I have bad news for you. VR already knows who you are on these forums despite your "anonymous" account name. Not only were you required to enter certain information when you signed up, you also had to pay to be able to post, so they have that information as well. JUST LIKE nobody here has access to any of that information, we will not have access to any of it in the game either.
By the way.... To the guy citing the Fourth Amendment as his basis for going against this, the Bill of Rights applies to governmental entities and their contractors, *NOT* to private entities such as Visionary Realms. That's explicitly why and how private businesses can buy and sell your personal data.
Watemper said:If it is hard enough to level then I don't think it will matter in the end.
Difficult content/leveling will only make griefing that much sweeter for a griefer... with that said, I'm ok with either option of notoriety or exclusivity of all characters' reputations.
As examples of content not mattering to griefers; In EQ, I've seen a lvl 60 epic monk with full planar gear kill themselves repeatedly until they were around low 20s just to grief people and be able to solo guards so player's couldn't even run trains to the guards. Single handedly shutting down low level areas..
I've also seen entire guilds (the monk above was from the guild in mind) dedicated to preventing any other player access to areas.
Both of these example were even on a PvP server where "policing the community" was actually an option.
I can see the benefits and heartache caused from either option of account identification but I would say that having the option to toggle sharing an identifying commonality between characters on the same account would allow those that want to use the feature the ability to do so, and those that don't the freedom to do so if they please... if people choose to not show their shared info, it would give other players reason to suspect something is up if the choice is up to the player.
Chanus said:Riahuf22 said:By saying to avoid harassment but honestly for one if you can truly getting harassed you can report him, as harassment for one is against the law and not only in the game.but also in real life, so if you are truly getting harassed just go through the proper channels and get it dealt with, as for friends if they are truly bugging you to no end because you won't play your lvl 59 cleric than to me they are showing they value your lvl 50 cleric than their friendship with you and that's says alot.
You can just as easily report people being bad actors without requiring I am 100% visible on any character I play.
I can't choose all of my guildmates. I have certainly been in situations before where I like my guild but I can't stand a few members and some days I just want to play in peace and quiet without having to deal with putting up with them.
Then your guild should be "policing itself" and removing the "bad actors" that are dragging down its reputation... Unless it condones that sort of thing. In which case, it, and its members, deserve the reputation that it gets.
Leachim said:(Full disclosure, haven't read most of the comments on here past the first page or so.)
I think we can agree that we all are expecting to find an ability to block/ingore a character that we are tired of dealing with. What if, VR took that a step further, and allowed us to block/ignore a person's account, but without tell us the account name it is we are blocking? People's privacy is protected, but we have to option to deal with (or rather, not deal with) a particular character, or all the character's belonging to the same account. Say, you are tired of dealing with the character Trollz69 (made up for example). When you got to ignore him, you are given 2 options; 1. "Ignore Trollz69" or 2. "Ignore Trollz69's Account"
Couple this with the option to link accounts on your friends list, if you choose to, and this seems the best of both worlds while minizing the drawbacks.
Agreed. A simple block / ignore should be sufficient. My privacy is important to me. Sometimes a guy just wants to be left alone to do his own thing.
Kalok said:Chanus said:Riahuf22 said:By saying to avoid harassment but honestly for one if you can truly getting harassed you can report him, as harassment for one is against the law and not only in the game.but also in real life, so if you are truly getting harassed just go through the proper channels and get it dealt with, as for friends if they are truly bugging you to no end because you won't play your lvl 59 cleric than to me they are showing they value your lvl 50 cleric than their friendship with you and that's says alot.
You can just as easily report people being bad actors without requiring I am 100% visible on any character I play.
I can't choose all of my guildmates. I have certainly been in situations before where I like my guild but I can't stand a few members and some days I just want to play in peace and quiet without having to deal with putting up with them.
Then your guild should be "policing itself" and removing the "bad actors" that are dragging down its reputation... Unless it condones that sort of thing. In which case, it, and its members, deserve the reputation that it gets.
Not bad actors. You remember the old Looney Tunes cartoon with Chester and Spike? Every guild seems to have at least one Chester.
A perfectly fine person, just can at times be very obnoxious and intrusive.
I guess, like most things around here, there is one side that wants the game to be their way, and their way limits other players.
And the other side wants the game to be another way, and their way doesn't limit other players.
And I always find myself siding with not limiting players just because you want the game to be a certain way.
There is no benefit to forcing me to be publicly known on all my alts that outweighs taking away my privacy as a player, should I choose to play and not be known for whatever reason.
Bad actors will be dealt with by VR. We don't need added layers of redundancy for that.
Darch said:Watemper said:Difficult content/leveling will only make griefing that much sweeter for a griefer... with that said, I'm ok with either option of notoriety or exclusivity of all characters' reputations.
As examples of content not mattering to griefers; In EQ, I've seen a lvl 60 epic monk with full planar gear kill themselves repeatedly until they were around low 20s just to grief people and be able to solo guards so player's couldn't even run trains to the guards. Single handedly shutting down low level areas..
I've also seen entire guilds (the monk above was from the guild in mind) dedicated to preventing any other player access to areas.
Both of these example were even on a PvP server where "policing the community" was actually an option.
I can see the benefits and heartache caused from either option of account identification but I would say that having the option to toggle sharing an identifying commonality between characters on the same account would allow those that want to use the feature the ability to do so, and those that don't the freedom to do so if they please... if people choose to not show their shared info, it would give other players reason to suspect something is up if the choice is up to the player.
oh that is so sweet nom nom nom. thank you for that story that explains how pvp works. we are barbaric savages where if you have the skill and the means to monopolize it, so be it. you agree to this when you play on a pvp server. i see nothing wrong with it.
i don't see how this supports your disposition when you'll be on a pve server though.
i think a lot of people keep forgettering that /ignore or /ignore account is not a good option..
I want to add him to a NEVER group with list, but I want to see what the jerk is saying about me in case i need to get a pantheon GM involved.
I bet all these people that want privacy use android phones with google photos and have alexa in their houses.... have tied all their social media accounts to pantheon via facebook, twitter and instagram. most people that complain about privacy are the most ignorant tech users. These people wanna talk about privacy, not actually BE private.
Chanus said:I guess, like most things around here, there is one side that wants the game to be their way, and their way limits other players.
And the other side wants the game to be another way, and their way doesn't limit other players.
And I always find myself siding with not limiting players just because you want the game to be a certain way.
There is no benefit to forcing me to be publicly known on all my alts that outweighs taking away my privacy as a player, should I choose to play and not be known for whatever reason.
Bad actors will be dealt with by VR. We don't need added layers of redundancy for that.
Actually, VR has stated that they are going to keep a certain amount of "official policing" (for lack of a better term) to the community. Which is *WHY* tying alts to each other is so important. They are not going to get involved in the "day to day" minutia of who is a jerk and who is not. THAT is the benefit to knowing who your alts are. Creating an alt, because you're being a jerk under your toon, is one of the ways that you can escape the consequences of your actions. It is more difficult to do that if it can be traced back to your main.
You might be ok with allowing people to be jerks and hide behind their alts, but alot of us aren't. We want to be able to readily identify those jerks no matter what alt they are utilizing.