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

I haven't read through the thread at all, it's late and I sort of just wanna say this before I forget it and/or go to sleep, so I'm sorry if this has been said before.

I voted for the opt in version in the poll but I would like it if there was an option for every individual character to show up in your account list or not. And of course have general options to automatically include or exclude them from that list if you know for sure that you want the same thing for all your characters.

I hope any of that made any sense. Like I mentioned, I'm a wee bit tired.

There's a very simple way to deal with overzealous guild leaders who make unreasonable demands, especially when they think they own your entire gameplay time, and it works regardless of how the friend list system is set up: just tell them NO. Don't be in a guild whose leader makes demands of you that you're not comfortable with.

Right, and account-level friends lists work fine in GW2, so the concept isn't broken, so thank you for agreeing that it doesn't need to be fixed

There are certain ways that the EQN will probably like to limit player capability based on the character they are playing, however in the end players find a way to succeed despite those limitations. Therefore, I would propose that for the sake of efficiency it is easier to allow contact via accounts rather than characters. In the end, if a player account wants to maintain contact with another player account the RP aspect of the account shouldn't be an artificial inhibitor to that interaction.

Normally I'd say per character, but if I have the option to only show X character without showing Y, then sure why not.

Don't suppose we could add, "Office Steath Mode" when we are playing from the office so that I can let people know I am on for a chat but can't do Battle Grounds of Raids.

Accounts-level friends lists such as in GW2 are broken in at least two ways-

Loss of privacy for alts.
Inability to create separate friend lists for each alt.

Accounts-level friends lists have their pros and cons. They are certainly not ideal. Whether they are the best design for friends lists is arguable - I would say not.

Loss of privacy for alts is something I had issues with a lot of the time when I needed to avoid Drama or raid burnouts from the guild and need alone time in Warcraft (Had a guild of 500 Members), This is when I learned Not to name my characters with the same/similar name.

One of the reasons I turned off the real ID for WoW when I played, to get aomw peace and quiet from guild drama.

I don't mind account based friend's lists as long as two options are implemented: true invisible/stealth mode which includes being able to log in anonymously and not allowing players to add you to their friend's list without your consent. Logging in anonymously wouldn't be needed if the friend's list doesn't show players when they log into the launch window or are in the character select screen. Only characters in game should be shown on the friend's list. Just give the option to log in anonymously when the player selects a character.

For privacy, we need the ability to have our status be "invisible", even to our friends and guildies. We need the ability to control how much of our account is visible to someone we friend in game. Maybe we want them to see some alts and not others. Maybe we don't want them to see any of our alts or we want them to see all of them.

For convenience, we need the ability to manage our complete friends list along with whatever privacy options we've selected no matter which character we're logged onto at the time.

Not sure if it has been mentioned in the thread (didn't really have time to read all the 53 pages ) but couldn't it be an option to let the player turn on and off the account linked friends on specific characters, possibly that you from the loggin screen can adjust it for a character and then when logged onto it, manage it for different friends.

Say that I've got Friend A and Friend B as friends on my account and take the example mentioned in the video on this topic that I don't want to be preasured by my guild. Friend A is an IRL friend and Friend B is from the guild. I can then toggle depending on what character I'm logged on if Friend B can see me as online and Friend A will always now if I am online or not.

The option to approve/deny access to your full character list should be considered. Although I enjoy grouping and interacting with friends and guildies, there are times when I just want to explore on my own for a bit, maybe do some crafting/gathering in peace.

I find this subject a bit more arbitrary in that, whichever way this is done, I'm still going to play the game, but I'm more than happy to contribute to the discussion.

Consider the opposing arguments...

If you have a friends list based on account, then you either are or aren't friends with that person all the time in all circumstances. Well, what happens when one day you want to betray someone because <of whatever reason>, good luck surprising them since they know every time you're online no matter which character or what faction unless you un-friend them which would possibly be suspicious. Having an account-based friends list is limiting, and in a sandbox game, the last thing you want to do is create limitations.

On the other hand, if you have a character-based friends list, you can still add a person to your friends... on every character if you want to, effectively achieving the same result as an account-based friends list, except this way, you can also not establish a friendship across all your characters if you so choose. But, this is hassle-some if you're a more social person with 30 friends who aren't part of your guild (for whatever reason) and you have 3 characters and half of your friends also have multiple characters.

So, why not find a balance between both worlds?

Step 1 - have it be account based

Step 2 - anytime you add a friend, have a selection box appear that shows you all of your characters

Step 3 - select which characters you wish to allow the person you're adding to be friends with.

I believe this process would be fairly simple to implement and would satisfy both sides of the argument.

Account with privacy options please. Thanks!

I selected I don't have a preference because what I want is not listed as a choice, and that is account wide with the option to be invisible for the night if I prefer.

Dear God this, I only put you on ignore for one of the following two reasons:

1. You are a miserable troll
2. Your inanne non-stop babbiling does not stop

Both of these problems are going to be occurring on more then just one character.

This is something i have wished for for, like for ages in eq2. Allways having to remember the name of a friends alt and add it to all my chars is like the most annoying thing. With the Option to add all my friends chars to my account so no matter what character i am currently playing i see all of his chars at the same time. This gives us all the possiblity to group faster and even help out a friend in need faster. it was the same with the chat in eq2 if you werent max level you missed out in a lot of grouping, now that has been wonderfully fixed THX for that guys! Fantasticly done. So YES give us the Account Based FL and not the Character Based FL

Some people want privacy when they log on and make secret characters on purpose. I don't want to invade their privacy the same way I don't want mine invaded. Account with an option or by character...either one of those is fine.

If you are going to make anything about the character's progression account based. Make it an option for the player to take part in it.

Part of the fun of playing an alt is the journey. And if what you said is true that no to characters will have the same story then I want to experience that story an alt for myself and not have parts already filled in.

No. I tend to make a lot of enemies in games and don't want other people seeing what my other characters names are.