Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Completely agree with you OP.

I would like to see an option on who I disclose my login status to.

Frankly, sometimes I feel like being social and sometimes I don't. And I'd just as soon not have people get bent just because I don't lather them with attention everytime I log on. It's a big universe... why should everyone be up in each other's grill all the time no matter what?

I'm rather content with how Local is now. Not sure if I can support this idea.

And in other chatrooms, like Alliance and Help, your presence isn't made aware of until you speak. So you can browse the chatroom for discussion without being seen.

I must emphasize, as it is important, that this does not allow greater threat for anyone.

With the ability to declare ALL ANONYMOUS as being treated as hostile, the only thing you enable, is for those you would not consider hostile to be added to this category by their own choice.

In any case, by seeing them actually on grid, you immediately know them by their true standings.

Noone is being placed at greater risk, save that their friends could mess with them in more ways.

An excellent point.

There should definitely be the option to block anonymous, just like you would block a specific pilot, and thereby not see anything they say in chat. (You would still see them in the list normally, as ANONYMOUS-001, etc)
This would be inclusive of all using the ANONYMOUS option, just like they could all be flagged as hostile by default.

This would be a presumed function already, in my opinion, but I am specifying it here.

I actually really like this idea. It solves a lot of the problems with having local show everyone's names, and also allows people to still be chatty with others in local.

This is like a reverse of another thread I just posted on, asking there to make the pilot list easier to use for spotting enemy players.

How do we even play with each other, if the game is doing it for us that way? Are we just supposed to watch?

In my opinion, this should require approval of the pilot who is to be reported on.

If they refuse to approve you, then you cannot track them.
I would further suggest that approval can be withdrawn, and that you would have a list of all those you grant permission to be notified when you come online.

This would have the effect, that you would be automatically notifying only those approved by you, if that was unclear.

I can't wait to start changing my local settings 5 times a day whenever I want to travel through safe space, hostile space, and then hisec.

I cannot see a point to your doing that.

I would suggest that you just flag yourself as anonymous, and leave it at that.
You can't be shot by accident any more than you could before, and maybe it will make your allies more conscious of being prepared for genuine threats.

Those who would be trying to avoid you can still be equally warned by the appearance of ANONYMOUS_001, so effectively nothing changes in the game itself.

You just aren't merrily waving a "Chat-Me-Up" flag as much.

You DO have a sense of humor!

LOL

As to knowing how local works, I would suggest this is common knowledge.

You are in friendly space?
Those using it for intel can be EASILY informed that you are the current presence behind one of the names listed, IF you choose to tell them.

You are in hostile space?
Unless they are quite confused, they would have any flagged as ANONYMOUS as default hostile, assuming they were ignoring the name in all caps and just watching the little colored box next to it.

You are in high sec?
Anyone with an active war dec on them should already be alert to threats, especially considering that out of corp alts are a well documented tactic to bypass flags here.
In any case, the moment they see you on grid, the awareness of your standing becomes obvious.

The only significant change?
Well, assuming that chatting in local is meaningless to you, under the right conditions it lets you spoof your buddies.