Should friends lists be account-based or character-based?

I would like to know all of my friend's alts. I am talking to the person, not the character, even in RP. Conversely, if I want to ignore someone, I want to ignore the person behind the character, all of their characters. Simple solution for more enjoyable game play.

Don't suppose we could have two tiers of friends, account and avatar only? Sometimes I just want to friend the character not the account. It would be nice to have both.

I think honesty is key and seeing my friends online is nice. If they want to hide from me on certain characters, then why are they my friend?

Account based all the way for me! Easier to swap chars & group up real quick

I don't like "account based" friends lists. As convenient as it can be to keep in touch, it's very inconvenient when I just don't want to be bothered. In EQ1 I could create an alt that no one else in the world knew about unless I told them.

If we're going to do account-based friends lists, at least give each of us the opportunity to "hide" our presence. Those of us who have a hard time saying "no" to our friends will really appreciate it.

I'd like both options : Real-life friends get a complete watch, InGame friends get a character watch.

I think it it a great idea to have that option, but soome prefer to hide alt's so why not allow them to either way it will not bother me much.

Seebs made a good point; I would also like to see my friends' alts. So I would lean more towards account-based. Especially being that, while I like to RP, I don't make it a priority, so I don't feel it would break any immersion for me.

I think it should be account based, like i mentioned in one of my posts.
because, when you have alts/toons its alot better to keep track of your friendslist that way. being able to add someone by account, if that person agrees, is a great option and makes it even easier to keep track of your friends. It would also be nice if we can take notes in our friendslist. Also add a feature to have a "undercover character".
Awesome SOE you seem to really listen.
Also consider characters joining multiple guilds at once to make an even more advanced social system. Like they did in FFXI, so we can have multiple communities. Theres alot guilds should be able to do in a next gen mmorpg.

Consider a fuction for adding alias characters automatically.
so you could have 3 modes.
If someone adds me the character i play will be added.
If a character from a playerselected group is added auto add the other alts in that group and mark as same person.
If a character isnt in the player selected group it wont be added.

account. I don't want to have to learn every name of my friends/guildies alts.

I'd also like to have it so when I add someone to my friends list, they are added to the friends lists of all my toons. Having to add them individually is annoying.

Character based. Sometimes you want to logon and play without having to deal with anyone. This is the only way to do it. Of course, an option for the user to make the decision how to handle this is always the best solution.

Option two is a clearly superior option here. It affords the most convenience(for the adder) while also provided the most freedom(for the addee).

I personally have no problem with account-based, but I know some people really would. There are players who sometimes just wanna hide out on an alt and do some adventuring without being social that day. For them I would just say keep it on a character basis.

BUT...please please let ignore be on an account basis. If I put someone on ignore I really don't want anything to do with that PLAYER. In Eq2 it's annoying to have to block all of someone's alts every time they reveal themselves. And then do it all over again on my alts. Let me just put them in the shadows and enjoy the game without the troll.

What about an option to add a single character to the friends list for your whole account. So that no matter what character I am on, I can see that character. I do not like the idea of being able to friend an entire account of alts, it's none of my business who my friends alts are.

I feel very strongly about this. As a former leader of a very large guild, sometimes I like to log in anonymously to play and relax in peace without a ton of tells. It isn't dishonest to want to "hide" and play with only the people I choose able to see if I'm online or not.

I think player should have the ability to hide there alts from friends if they want to get away for a bit.

Should be an option to allow alts to be seen or not when one toon on a account is added.

Friends lists on my toons should be the same across all of my toons.

I would say let us have the ability to add alts per account but also be able to block this request or say yes on an individual basis as per the second option. There are times we might want to just hide out for a little while without being bothered. Or perhaps create a system where we add per account but when logging in have the option to make our online status unavailable.