Social/comm. tool question: Player/friend lookup ready by release day?

[Stardouser]

Now, I know SOE is planning to have social tools revved up thru the roof. But I'm curious, will there be a way to look up player names similar to how EQ players used to let you do it and see what server they are on? I wouldn't be surprised if the facebook app lets you instantly see who is on Planetside 2 from your FB friends, but what about the ability to search by email addresses and get character names as search results?

Player name lookup is probably a given, and FB matching too, but email address lookup, I'm not so sure.

But either way, more importantly, will these tools be ready on Day 1 so we can use them to find the right server?

[Hamma]

We don't know for sure but Higby mentioned some of this stuff during our PSU interview with him last month.

[RadarX]

We can't discuss details just yet but tools like this are certainly being discussed right now.

[Shogun]

just hope there are no facebook tools that give you any advantage.

i managed to avoid this evil data leech and don´t want to miss out on anything on my favorite game because of this!

hope soe keeps their promise to not sell power, and something powerful on facebook would be selling power. not for money, but for your privacy!

[Kemeros]

Will the stuff available on the apps for ios and android be available on the website too for people who don't own any but have access to internet at work?

[The Degenatron]

Personaly, I hope this is a no go. I'd rather not have a digital stalker be able to track down all of my alt via my email sign-on. If I want to lay low and not play my main, I should be able to do that.

My 2 cents worth.

[Stardouser]

We can't discuss details just yet but tools like this are certainly being discussed right now.

Ooh, there's another one I forgot to put in this post: We all know it's going to be nuts on release day, servers filling up with characters fast and you will have to shut down character creation on overfull ones to spread people out to the others.

But what about people who already have outfits or buddies? Will there be some way people or outfits can apply for day 1 server assignments as a group? If not, then in order to get on the server with the rest of the outfit/friends, a player could be forced to wait for the week 1 rush to subside(ie, after 40 of an outfit's 65 guys create a character, character creation on that server gets locked for a few days) - either not play at all for the first week, or play a character on a server they will abandon a week later after they are finally able to create a character on the proper server.

Personaly, I hope this is a no go. I'd rather not have a digital stalker be able to track down all of my alt via my email sign-on. If I want to lay low and not play my main, I should be able to do that.

My 2 cents worth.

That is a good point, and email look-up is NOT essential to what I'm thinking of. That would be one way for someone to get caught using multiple accounts to play multiple empires on the same server!

[Bags]

Why not just ask your friends?

[Stardouser]

Why not just ask your friends?

OK, you caught me...this wouldn't just serve to find friends you want to play with, but people you want to play against. For example, if someone wanted to go up against "Player X", or even "Outfit X" then they'd want to create a character on the same server but fighting for a different empire. To do that, you would need to be able to find out what server they are on and what empire. Now that you make me think this more out loud, did we ever determine whether character names would be globally unique, or unique per server?

And, come to think of it, would the player stats page/player lookup page tell you which continent/hex area people fight in the most?

[Captain1nsaneo]

The ability to remove one's self or to not be found is actually something that's fairly important online in general. I know that there are some states in Europe that have laws which allow citizens to demand that their data be removed from aggregators.

Crack provides a rudimentary and enjoyable break down on the subject:
http://www.cracked.com/article_18661_the-end-online-anonymity-why-will-you-be-freaking-out.html

If you're thinking about how exposed you are online remember, you don't need to make yourself invisible just hard enough that people will go after someone easier. It's that whole, 'outrunning your friend not the lion' thing.