Question: about new bi-directional FL

[Neil Stockton]

Originally Posted by jaywalker

Sorry but it really isn't obvious to me. Can you explain?


I'm sure it's great news for scammers that they can remove thenselves from people's FL (and better yet: even if they don't remove you, you can't find out their fulll ava name this way anymore)

I can't think of any advantage at all to the normal player, let alone such a huge advantage that it over-rides this glaring drawback, given that we were already able to put nuicances on ignore

What's obvious to you isn't to me. And vice-versa , it seems. Please explain.

It's obvious to me The ability to remove yourself benefits anyone who has been on the receiving end of unwanted PMs. It's much better to remove yourself from their FL than having to ignore them. Not only is it a time-waster, but you always have to read the first message they send you.

Another reason would be to maintain control over the volume of messages you receive. Not everyone is going to have this problem, but someone like me who's a new player adviser or pilot or trader may end up getting so many PMs that it interferes with effective game play. Previously, many avatars would not allow you to add them to your FL, even if you just needed a temporary contact, out of fear that they would be opening themselves up to more unwanted PMs in the future. They had no guarantee that your FL addition would be temporary or that they could remove you later. Now they can allow a temporary addition and be assured that they can remove themselves from your FL after the need is over. The player register also makes temporary additions easier, knowing that you'll be able to re-add anyone easily at a later date if necessary.

Privacy is another issue with some avatars. Higher level or "famous" players need to be able to use the FL, confident that they will be able to remove stalkers.

Overall, I think it's a good, simple system they have now—or at least it will be once they fix it to display full names and remove the limit. To me, the ability to remove yourself from others' FL is important. It gives me the freedom to add any new players or space passengers without loss of FL control. I don't see that it benefits scammers any more than other players (since you can always still send a support case for scammers, even if they're not on your FL). Scammers will like to remove people from their friend list, but I don't think it makes the actual scamming any easier.

[jaywalker]

Ty for the explanation Neil, but gonna have to disagree with your conclusions.

Originally Posted by Neil Stockton

It's obvious to me The ability to remove yourself benefits anyone who has been on the receiving end of unwanted PMs. It's much better to remove yourself from their FL than having to ignore them. Not only is it a time-waster, but you always have to read the first message they send you.

Indeed, I've been very active in -game for four years. I don't need telling about unwanted PMs

Not everyone is going to have this problem, but someone like me who's a new player adviser or pilot or trader may end up getting so many PMs that it interferes with effective game play.

Absolutely. I am the world;s worst multtitasker, so very often i go out to hunt or mine but wind up spending 3 hours answering PMs instead...

But the way I see it is: it is up to me whether I answer those PMs right now, or even open them immediately. Those few people who don't understand that you might be afk or tied up, and get pissed if you don';t repond immefiately...well they will get pissed about something else before long because they are just too self-centred, so no point worrying about it.

The ones that eat into my game-play are the ones that i really want to answer, not the nuicance ones. Removing myself from people's FL would not solve the problem.

Conversely, if I could remove a lot of people from my FL without removing myself from theirs, that would help a lot, because it would then be possible to tell if the people that i really want to talk to are online, As it is, they are crowded out by business contacts and by noobs who asked my advice once or twice, anything up to 4 years ago. I daren't remove any of those people cos its too hard to tell them apart, but it's really hard to pick my friends and socmates out from the crowd.

Privacy is another issue with some avatars. Higher level or "famous" players need to be able to use the FL, confident that they will be able to remove stalkers.

True, but I would prefer to ask the famous players if that advantage really outweighs the disadvantage that they will not be able to keep tabs on stalkers and impersonators. I think not for reasons that I'll explain below

I don't see that it benefits scammers any more than other players (since you can always still send a support case for scammers, even if they're not on your FL). Scammers will like to remove people from their friend list, but I don't think it makes the actual scamming any easier.

I guess you've never yet reported a scammer? MA insist in being given the full ava name of the scammer ...or any other abuser, come to that. Yet, with recent FL changes,m they might have finally eradicated every conceivable way of finding out the full ava name! This is particularly important in the instance of impersonation scams. Without seeing the full ava name , you can't even tell if an ava called "Summer" , for instance really is an impersonator, or the famous fashion designer, Summer. (somebody did get away with impersonating her quite recently)

Also,one finds that many people who've actually been scammed prefer to keep the scammer on FL, so they can tell whether that person is on-line. There are many reasons why this can be helpful, beryond the obvious attempt to tack down the scammer and get their goods returned.eg there is a scam that involves making teams. Having encounterered one such, I kept a look -out for him on FL after that. This told me the interesting info that he only got banned for 1 month, and enabled me to accurately guess where a sudden rash of team invitations were coming from, and not only refuse them, but also warn others to do the same.

Also, once you've identified a scammer , you can put "scammer" next their name on your FL, so there;'s no chance that you make a mistake and accuse some poor sod with a similar name! (Very easily done. Someone mistook me for a scammer recently, but kept calling me Jupiter! So there's two damaged reps for the price of one! if anyone takes him seriously. At least, if he had me on FL, the real Jupiter would be spared his rantings!)

So all-in-all, I would not be sure that the small gain in privacy for someone like ND outweighs the problem of the big gain in privacy for his impersonators, and the loss of any means to prove that it wasn't really him when they try to scam people in his name. I strongly suspect that it doesn't, but would have to actually ask him that question.

jay

[Neil Stockton]

That the FL does not show full names is a bug, it's not supposed to be that way.

I think there are alternate ways to solve most of these issues you mentioned, including the player register (though that's optional) and good old paper and pen. If you're doing an expensive coloring project, really the only way you can make sure it's the same person (if you don't already know them) is to have them show you their first name, then add the second, then add the third.

I don't disagree that there are some benefits to having one-way contacts. The player register makes the two-way contacts not so critical, as you can add anyone whenever you need to. I've also said MA needs to develop tags or folders for contacts, so you can group your soc contacts separately from your trading contacts, etc, because you're right, it's hard to visually separate friends from others.

[Aandar]

http://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/fo...88-FL-disaster.

[KikkiJikki]

Just on the issue of incomplete names being seen in the FL...

All you need to do is wait till the user in question is offline and then send a pm via the FL interface. Your chat window will tell you player x is offline, dislaying the full avatar name.

Then you can rename (or delete) the entry in your FL.

[Serica]

Originally Posted by KikkiJikki

Just on the issue of incomplete names being seen in the FL...

All you need to do is wait till the user in question is offline and then send a pm via the FL interface. Your chat window will tell you player x is offline, dislaying the full avatar name.

Then you can rename (or delete) the entry in your FL.

You do have to open the pm window while they're online tho

I've been doing this about 5 at a time, opening the pm window, minimising it and stacking off to the side, then sending a note and editing the name after I see them log out.

I figure I'll finish in a couple of years or so

Some tho, I know I'll never see come online. It made me quite sad to see Boldar's name there again.

[KikkiJikki]

"You do have to open the pm window while they're online tho "

I haven't needed to do that. I choose the users currently showing as offline and send to them.

[Serica]

Interesting.

For me, with any player on my FL who is offline, the 'Send Message' option on the FL is greyed out and unavailable.

Nor can I select an offline name as a target and use the 'Send Message' action from the action library.

[KikkiJikki]

People often tell me I'm special...

I'll recheck tonight.

[lokia]

So MA are you still reading post in this section. What about this Friends List issue, I have removed myself from about 100 clients lists trying to make room to add people. This is really totally unacceptable that I cannot play the game because you can't be bothered to fix this issue.

PLEASE AT LEAST TELL US YOUR WORKING ON IT