Stalker, Stalker, Stalker

It’s really depressing how easy it seems to be that you can just stalk people on Warcraft with apparent ease. I’ve used CheckPvP in the past to figure out alts of people with creepy stuff in their TRP so I know to avoid them… but going out of your way to scour the Armoury, achievements, etc. is just crazy.

You can just access it as normal, it’s a distinct page from the public profile / foruma activity page

Blocking the public profile breaks stuff like check.pvp though AFAIK

It’s a two way street - while people definitely have the right to avoid harrassment sometimes avoiding that harrasment can come in the form of knowing who is sending you crazy anonymous PMs. You may remember from your time in the PCU that guy on Alliance who compulsively relogs his various alts all day to send people angry messages / agree with himself in trade chat and knowing that these various characters are actually just one guy who has lost his entire hairline + knowing to avoid them is pretty good and checking matching armoury pets is one way to do that. People have a right to avoid other people if they want and people on this server really love to make alts to bypass that kind of thing (as OP has said, even)

Really it shouldn’t be the case that players have to do loads of byzantine tactics to avoid being hassled in this game - you’d think the norm would be Blizzard coming down hard on it

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Out of curiosity, what ended your friendship? I was surprised to read you’d stayed in their home. I know how you feel if it’s purely irrational behaviour - I had a similar situation around 10 years ago.

To cut a long story short, it ended with him taking a train all the way down from Scotland to my hometown to wait outside of the high school I went to (he found this out through an irl friend who played at the time). I was underage and unfortunately he was the type of person to mistake friendliness for something more. Nasty business - the school had to phone the police to deal with him irl and I had to realm transfer and name change in-game. I just hope he got some professional help in the end and turned a corner in his life. It changed the way I experienced the game a bit unfortunately but after a long break I’m pleased to say I’m having fun playing again now.

Hope you can find a positive way to resolve this, with any luck they might see your forum post and get the message!

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I’m sorry to hear that, Timerion. Especially when this type of a deal happens at the younger age, fear will probably be in a bigger scope as a result. Or stress, at the very least.

It’s a long story, actually, but I will try to summarize it. There were two major breakpoints. First one was a swift one and the second was akin to a “slow fire distinguish”.

In 2012/2013, there were three people. Myself, Stalker and Nir. I met my stalker via Nir back then. I was talking a lot and spending time with Nir at that time so when Nir and Stalker had a major breakdown (reasons of which I don’t remember now), I was kinda “in-between” those two. However, Nir wanted to keep socializing with that Stalker and thus they made a new “person” and asked me not to reveal that secret.

I was foolish to agree and even promised on keeping my lips sealed. And as it always happens, Stalker soon figured out that fake-persona of Nir and they had another major breakdown. I confessed that I was aware about it and since then, Stalker broke all the contacts, whilst I left with a guilty feeling. (I shall add that Stalker back then felt very hurt due to this incident.)

When in 2017 Stalker approached me, I initially saw a chance to try and fix that error and “redeem” myself, so to say. Anyhow, things were looking good until I went to live for a week with that person. I was simply enjoying my time being in a new country, away from all that everyday hassle of where I lived. It never crossed my mind that my Stalker was hoping/waiting for me to make any “relationship” based moves like the lovers usually do.

I guess that’s where the first and fatal crack came from. When we departed, I didn’t even reach my city first without receiving a first batch of “crapstorms” as I used to call them. That my stalker expected more and I was either too dumb to notice or that I didn’t like her for other reasons, so on so on.

Since then, whenever we had disagreements or conflicts, my stalker would pour those crapstorms on me and with each storm coming in, I felt more careless about that person up to the point that I said “Bye”.

Around the end of 2018, my stalker learned that I was a GM of another guild and she basically gave me an ultimatum of: “Disband your guild to prove me that I matter to you” to which I, of course, said no and since then she’d also would use that to gnaw me, whilst trying to claim that it was merely a “test”.

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That sounds pretty psychotic. I hope you’re well rid of their behaviour as soon as possible.

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Wow, that must have been really difficult! It’s always painfully awkward when someone likes you romantically and you don’t share the same feelings. Although I’ve never tried it, ERP exists realistically between cartoon characters and shouldn’t be confused with real life feelings or objectives. Unfortunately not everyone online follows the same line of thinking, often getting lost in their own fantasies only to loose touch with reality.

I’m definitely not going to give you a lecture, but I can’t help but fear how it could be a much darker story if this person was the type of unhinged psycho you see in horror films. You most likely already know this, but please take care with who you meet online. Our personal safety should take number one priority when it comes to online friendships being taken into the real world. So much for not giving you a lecture, I know - sorry! :man_facepalming:

It sounds like this person is just having a hard time getting over you romantically. From personal experience irl - if the person doesn’t get the hint by being open about your feelings or from some time apart, it’s time to cut all ties. If you’ve already explained you don’t feel the same and never will, I would suggest threatening to report them and then ignoring every form of interaction from them after that.

My very best of luck with dealing with this, keep us updated and stay safe! :slight_smile:

I think personally you’ve got a two course choice, if this person is making you feel uncomfortable - it’s probably highly likely that they’re uncomfortable with themselves.

And what they’d want you to do is to see and hopefully lean and sympathise with that.

I think the safest course of action, is probably to blanket block them on all platforms. If they make alt accounts to try and bypass it, do the same, there’s no gain of showing you’ll put up with them if you want them out of your life, hopefully they’ll be smart enough to get a bigger picture.

To me, you can also confront them, and I mean properly confront rather than an emotional response. You want them to understand, what they are doing and why it is wrong and truth be told I’d even avoid stating how it’s making you feel.

If this player is stalking you, they may be thinking it’s some form of shielding or protection, you want to tell them that it’s got to stop and they have to move on without even thinking your character name.

To me, these sorts of people are so caught up in their fantasy land that they’ll try and make anything work; or be a reason for them to work. Emotional responses and half hearted responses are the sorts of things that stoke these people on. So yeah sometimes a confront can do some good

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It’s hard because you’re dealing with some very strange and quasi-‘real’ emotions and pyschological responses to what is basically fiction - with the added factor/titilation that there’s another person on the other character(s). I’m no neurologist or psychologist but there must be some screwy endorphins thing going on that messes with your brain if you consistently do it without the emotional detatchment some people can achieve.

…There really needs to be a long, long look at how mental health and communities like this are bad combinations. I’m probably an example of that, lol.

I suppose the problem is that there’s a whole load of just craziness going on for so many years that trying to scour the logs and determine a fair and reasonable outcome is just beyond the capabilities of an understaffed community support team. They probably have enough to deal with people being absolute drongos in Trade Chat alone that something as complex as this would never get touched.

Something I forgot to mention was evidence, screenshotting whatever comes your way from said person and building up evidence against them is a good one.

Inhales

Hard to say without talking to each person but anyways, here it goes:

each person is different when it comes to how greatly they are affected by the internet and the communities build there. It’s similar to real life, where certain influences onto certain personalities can and will have an effect.

In my experience with people that go ballistic, similar to situations like the OP described, are clinging onto the only way of affection they have been experiencing. Or in other words: a desperate need for acceptance. Humans are social. What happens when humans are completely removed from any social means can be seen times and times again. There were studies for it, plenty of them. One Google search is enough.

Nowadays though those people have the internet. An anonymous place where they can do whatever. Will they do whatever? No. Will they try to find someone for a deep connection? Yes. How like is it for them to find one? Depends on the personality, social awareness and desperation.

Now let’s take the whole ERP thing into account.

For someone seeking a desperate connection, that will be the height. Sure, it’s pretending but they can forget that part easily. Oftenly comes with being on good terms with the other person OOC as well, so someone with a personality like that will make up scenarios in their head. The person behind that screen doesn’t even matter too much, it’s more the clinging onto the idea of “this is a connection I value”. The only other option? Going back to having no connection at all.

The best example I can bring up is I encountered someone on AD that developed feelings through roleplay on someone else. They roleplayed their characters becoming a couple, erping, having children and I don’t know what else. The person I knew developed feelings on an OOC basis towards the other. The other person said no. And that is where the obsession started. For years. Drawing artwork of their characters, writing countless status’ on Discord how the person I know imagines them together and I don’t know what else. Telling that person they are obsessed did nothing.

I’ve encountered people like that and they were incredible lonely people IRL that were desperately clinging onto someone. That is unhealthy and most people would consider it “creepy”. Which only alienates them even more from other social connections. It’s a never ending cycle.

People like that do need to realise that they are doing themself no favor. It’s rare that someone acknowledges that and actively seeks help. Usually it’s family members doing an intervention or friends noticing how unhealthy obsessed someone is over either someone or something. Now the issue is, as I mentioned above, when there are no family members or friends to intervene.

Just a downwards spiral. I’m not trying to tell anyone “SAVE THESE POOR SOULS AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!” I’m just trying to say that creepy behavior like that has USUALLY a very deep underlying issue and their behavior in roleplay doesn’t add do it.

I know a lot of people have opinions about ERP on AD. Some are ignoring the ToS that say “don’t do that!”. We all know how it goes.

If you’re one of these people: it only needs one bad person to catch a stalker. Just one. Like in the example of the OP here. You need to be unlucky once and you will have someone following you constantly and going to unhealthy extends.

So please, try to keep that in mind. For your sanity AND the other person.

Exhales

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When it comes to close connections, it’s indeed a two-way street. For some it remains healthy, for some it doesn’t… some are honest, some are manipulative. Hard to tell without screenshots etc… but from what the OP tells, it’s going a little too far from the other person’s side. Unsure of the OP’s part in this, how clearly s/he has communicated boundaries and whether s/he has been firm and honest or whether there’s some manipulation, let’s say triangulation etc. happening which would feed the other person’s obsession and envy even further.
For example, I’ve had a few cases of couple RP (romance, no ERP) where “commitment” was agreed on OOCly beforehand between certain two chars but the other person started triangulating on that exact same character… treated my character as an option rather than priority which made me feel they weren’t that committed, and I was giving more than receiving for that RP. Thus, after a confrontation I’d dig up their all alts and ignore them so I’d not make the mistake of wasting more time on such person, since they aren’t capable of follow-through. OOC deceit always makes me angry, even if IC=/=OOC you’d expect the other person be willing to offer some meaningful RP with lasting quality. If they aren’t, it’s important to communicate it beforehand.

People have emotions behind the screen in the end so it’s advisable to be careful, mistakes were made but nobody is immune to them.
Probably an advice you’ve been given already, but do take screenshots for evidence and don’t feed the other person’s behavior. Focusing on your well-being is a good call though, I’ve taken breaks from this game for much less than what you’ve gone through.

As for pvpcheck, it can be used for both, preventive measures to avoid people/alts who won’t make RP enjoyable for you, for example IC often resulting into OOC arguments etc. But it’s also a tool which sick people can use to stalk you.

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Naming and shaming is not allowed on the forums.

Please be sure to use the in-game right-click report option to report harassment in World of Warcraft. We will investigate and take appropriate action do address the issue.

Keep in mind, we can only investigate what happens in the game and on our platform. If you are being harassed outside of the game, you may contact the proper authorities, depending on the course of action you wish to take.