Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Get rid of it or make it optional if you want your friends to know you have logged on.

Using it to watch for capital alts is utterly stupid

Put the surprise back in the game!!!

No way. It's a vital tool for monitoring the activities of potential and active war targets, keep tabs on guys that ganked you so you can exact payback, or avoid known gankers and bumpers in systems where you know they operate. Plus a myriad of other uses.

...like bumpers on the Jita undock, even if they have moved on to faction warfare.

If you don't want someone to keep tabs on you, don't give them cause to do so.

We know why what it's useful for. That's why we want it removed. If you want to keep tabs on someone, do it yourself or have one of your "friends" do it for you. Why does the GAME run over and tap you on the shoulder every time someone you have watch listed logs in? By the same "useful information" token, we could justify the game telling you EVERYTHING about another player, where they are, what they are flying, what their ship fitting is, how much ISK they have and all their market transactions, how much capacitor they have left or how long they've been idle . . . There is a REASON there are calls to nerf things like the Local System Channel. There is a REASON ships have targeting range and scan resolution. There is a REASON you can't view other people's contracts issued or in progress, or even completed if they are private. There is the implicit understanding that the more information you have about someone, the greater the advantage you have over them. And that information should come at a price, hence things like cargo and ship scanners, rather than just being able to magically know things about your opponent.

Theres plents of good REASONs why the watchlist, local and a certain amount of information is available to anyone that wants is, just as there is a REASON other things aren't. The entire ssytem is there for your benefit as well. Local will let you warn or threaten or even converse with random people without having to ask for private chats, or only be in their corp, etc. all things considered a good, as well as in highsec and lowsec it lets you know who is there, risk or friend. The same goes with a watchlist.
The GAME is a simulator of not just markets, manufacturing and resource extraction and logistics, its about consumption. War, in eve, is the ultimate consumer, because mission runners, miners and haulers don't get blown up enough, and wouldn't use as much resources that said miners and haulers provide.
What you would like is a completely anonymous and friendless silent space game, where no one knows anything and basic intel is only owned by people who spend huge amounts of time amassing it by subterfuge. That might be the price you are looking for, a way to pay spies for EVERYTHING they can learn about you. Giving people the minimum in order to let them do more, and better calculate risk to themselves and risk for gain, and probability of having fun, by either taking that risk or avoiding it is the REASON these things are here. The only people that would benefit from your tearing down of such basic social links as local and watchlisting are the people with a lot of ISK, and you will have lost your best tools to have information to maximize your wins, and minimize your losses.

There, I think i've answered your cry-for-attention capitalization, and have tried to avoid the "touch the space where the bad man ganked you" kneejerk responses they engender.

oops

The butthurt is strong in this one.

Keep the list but remove on-/offline notifications.

Give locator agents (PI's) a new job, keep track of precise on-/offline time of individuals within a predetermined period of time (ex. 3 hours) with a mail sent when a status change is detected.
Let PI's only function within the boundaries of a region, add more so there is always some available and lastly add the option to install an office with a PI on player outposts (maybe even other agents dependent on how the sov revisions end up).

Basically, let the intel remain but charge people for it and steal a few minutes of their time for the privilege.

This.