Help with chat

Hi, me and my wife recently started playing. The reason I'm posting is because she usually gets a LOT of harassing messages and it's really beginning to upset her. Is there anyway to turn private chat so you don't receive tells from people not on your friends? or is there something else we can to do stop the harassment? She's really not enjoying the game just because of this so it'd be nice if there was a way to stop it.

There's a couple things you can do.

To remove all tells (personal chat), right click the tab that the chat shows up in, select it and remove it from that tab. But this won't prevent you from seeing anything that person says in broadcast, local or other channels.

To do it more selectively, when you get an offensive tell, click on that person's name in the chatbox and select "ignore". That will prevent you from ever seeing anything from that person, whether it is in broadcast, global channels, local, tells, etc, as well as preventing that person from spamming team or Super group invites on you. IMO, that would be a better way of doing it, as you will never have to hear from that person again.

If the tell is particularly offensive, it would be a very good idea to send a petition (Menu->support) detailing the person's name and what they did. If they did it you, odds are they are doing it to other people as well and will get banned if they get enough petitions against them.

Also make liberal use of the "/hide" option. It won't stop people from seeing you in the same zone, but they won't be able to find you in a search.

You can also use /petition <petition subject> and it brings up that window.

Just to echo what has already been said, I would very highly encourage you to petition this sort of behavior whenever it occurs. While it is irksome to have to take time out of your play to file a report, these sorts of people have no business in this community and the sooner they are banned the better it is for all.

As a longtime player of this game, I take a certain amount of pride in our reputation as a friendly community and hearing this sort of thing from a new player is concerning. I sincerely hope your future experiences in the game are more positive.

Please do petition it.
That way jerks get stopped.

Its also uncommon that multiple people would be targeting your wife, to me it sounds more likley its the same person or few people using different names. In that case, the ignore will block all thier messages regardless of character name.

Remove broadcast messages from her main chat window. It won't stop her from seeing them as message bubbles in the game but at least they won't be littering her chat window.

Liberally use /petition on players with rude and harassing messages or the very least use /ignore on them.

Well, now, to play devil's advocate, we don't know what the OP considers "harassing."

If it's stuff of an overtly sexual nature, or things like racial slurs or that kind of thing, definitely /petition them, they need to be removed from the community.

However, in a community of semi-anonymous strangers, keep in mind that some amount of bickering is normal. If your wife is upset by someone saying something like, I dunno, "What are you doing!!? Stop being so stupid and kill this ****er!" while in the heat of battle, I would suggest just letting it go. Hopefully you can use a "reasonable person" standard to determine where the difference is between irritating and harassing; otherwise, you'll be needlessly bothering GMs for something that is highly likely not going to get acted upon.

Oh, and stuff like, "Hey, you're hot" isn't overtly sexual. Stuff like, "Hey, let's go to my base and you **** me on the **** until I make you cry for more" is overtly sexual. Again, "reasonable person" standard.

Some will undoubtedly argue to /petition everything and let the GMs sort it out. I disagree. Aside from being a bit petty and childish, you're wasting time (and time literally equals money) that could be spent on development, and keeping people who have technical issues such as being stuck in a mission from getting help. If someone really is doing something bad, do it. If they're just being a general nuisance, just /ignore them and leave them alone.

By the way, the 100% wrong thing to do is engage them. Sadly, there are griefers who delight in getting a reaction, and you're only helping them by fighting. I've seen cases where people who are provoked even go too far and start doing stuff like yelling in broadcast, at which point you're just as bad as the person who is griefing you. Do what you're going to do, then leave them be.

Thanks for the replies. The harassment was mostly stuff of a sexual nature, and it was multiple people. I was hoping there would be a way to just stop allowing unwanted tells. Choosing between turning them off entirely and just dealing with it doesn't seem great. I'll try to show her how to do petitions for next time it happens.

Using /hide to hide from tells doesn't really turn them off. She would still receive the message, prepended by "[YOU ARE HIDDEN]", and the sender would receive a message telling them that she was "offline or hidden" (it would not disclose which).

If she were to /ignore the person in question, she would never see anything they have to say to her, nor any invite windows. This is probably the best method for her, as it blocks the jerks, and leaves everyone else able to communicate with her normally.

/ignore works too - they made /gignore and /ignore work identically a while back, Dump.

As was mentioned, clicking on someone's name brings up a pop menu that includes "Ignore" and "Ignore as Spammer". Despite what others say, "spammer" does not solely mean RMT.

Another thing to consider: each server has its own 'flavor'. If the server you have started on is not a comfortable and welcoming place to play, try another one!