Petopians who are not so Petopian...

[Araela]

Greetings all!

I have posted here and there on the forums for the last few months. I have made many wonderful connections with people who use these forums for support, both in game and out of game. I love the fact that there is a community out there who wants to focus on helping each other to obtain pets, rather than hinder people. We give advice, tips, suggestions, recount our own experience of tames, etc. Rarely have I had a bad experience with anyone on here, and the few bad experiences I have had were not even really all that bad!

Recently, someone who reads these forums whispered me in game on his alt. He noticed we played on the same realm and asked if we could be friends to help each other with rare hunting. I said sure and added his alt to my friends list. We talked for a fair bit about Petopia and the community, the fact that we both enjoy the experiences and insights that others have to offer, and discussed which pets we were after.

Over the next day or so we had been talking so much that I gave him my RealID as a way to communicate with me when he wasn't on his hunter, if I happened to see a pet he was going for. This was mainly because I was camping for Magria and Ankha, and he was looking for Ban'thalos. I told him if I saw Ban I would definitely let him know. He then requested my phone number, and became upset that I would not give him my phone number because it "hindered our communication regarding rares." I told him I did not think my husband would be happy with me giving out my number to him because we had just met, which he understood, but was still irritated at later on that night and the next day.

Giving him my RealID turned out to be a big mistake.....

I have since been harassed by this individual for the following:

• Not having the same pets as him.
  Keeping certain pets in my stables that are "old" such as Old Cliff Jumper, my favorite wolf.
  Being Surv/BM instead of MM/BM.
  Letting rares go in favor of non-unique rare skins (Such as Grunter).
  Being out in the Firelands and accused of trying to camp for a pet he wanted, even though I was just doing my dailies with my husband and guildies.
  Related to the above, when I explained that I was just doing dailies I was yelled at for being in the area of the Firelands at all while he was online because I should have more respect for him.

All of these were things that caused me to remove him from my RealID last night. He whispered me on his hunter last night to tell me Kirix was up. I let him know that I had him, but thanked him for letting me know. About 30 minutes later he sent another whisper telling me that he was trying to help another hunter tame but failing. I said, "Tame Kirix?" He said, "YES. I ALREADY TOLD YOU THAT. What did you do to tame him?!" I told him which method I had used (being punted- disengage and height, pop deterrence/haste pot/tame) to successfully tame Kirix. He said "Ok thanks." Well a few minutes later he whispered me again and said, "We gave up. We just kept dying." I said, "Did you try the disengage method?" He said, "No we tried the "ACTUALLY-STAND-AND-TAME-FROM-THE-ROCK-THAT-ACTUALLY-WORKS Method." I said, "Did you tell him about the disengage method?" He replied, "No, it doesn't work and it doesn't really matter." I said, "What's his name? I'll whisper him and tell him." He said, "Don't worry about it, he gave up anyway and Kirix is probably gone now." I said, "No seriously- what's his name? I want to help." He said, "Nevermind he doesn't really want him anyway." Then he logged off....

I was dumbfounded. Even my husband, who does NOT understand my obsession for hunting rare pets, thought that it was a "d*** thing to do."

I have always been someone who has tried to help, offer insight, suggestions, etc. I don't claim to be the best hunter out there, nor do I claim to know everything about every pet... but I do try to help when I can... to NOT be able to help, after being asked about my tame strategy, and then told that it wouldn't work even after I had tamed with that strategy, was irritating.

I don't even know what to do about this... and the fact that he reads these forums (though I don't know his Petopia name, nor am I going to disclose his in-game name) makes me wonder if this is going to blow up in game or not. Regardless, I don't understand how someone from this community, who specifically sought ME out, can act like this.

>.<

I don't know how the rest of you feel, but I'm a little creeped out at this point.

[Moore]

Yep, that is really really creepy. I've made it a habit of never giving out my RID unless I know the person for awhile. You could always call up Blizz and ask them if you can change like your real ID thing (which I would probably try) cause reading that even creeps me out. D:

[Shade]

That is really creepy. This is why I never give out my RID to anyone aside from real family or friends.

You never know who is control a toon, and while some people are great and nice players who truly are out there only to help you, there are criminal minded individuals out there that are very good at sounding great until they get what they want.

But I'm just paranoid like that.

Still, I wouldn't suggest giving out your RID to someone you just met. If you filled out your forms when you signed up for the game, that means that they then have your real name and email. Not something I am comfortable letting others know.

You removed him from your RID, does that mean he no longer has yours? Or, if you had to and were to go and change the email that your account is under, would that remove him?

[Sarayana]

There's some confusion about realid here... Once you have someone on RID, they no longer have your email address. They only see (and can only ever see) the name on your account. If they gave you their email to invite them, they don't even have your email address. Once you unfriend them, that's the end of the RID friendship, you don't stay on their lists. HOWEVER! If you gave him your email, he may very well have written it down.

I have the same policy as Moore, RID is for people I feel very close to and know very well. I don't use it for people I just occasionally speak with, my regular friends list is good enough for that.

All that aside, I'm really sorry you had to deal with that, Araela. My RID preachiness doesn't mean I think it's your fault for friending him, bottom line is that he was completely different from how he first came across. Hopefully unfriending him will be the end of it, lord knows we all have enough hassle in our lives that we don't need added burdens of having to worry about half-strangers' eccentricities.

[Kalliope]

I'm sorry that happened to you. >_< Hopefully he'll read this and suddenly realize how he's been behaving and change.....hopefully. :/

[CrystalKitten]

Wow... If I had someone like that on my friends list, they'd not only be removed, but put on ignore... and possibly reported for harassment (as some of that stuff is REALLY none of their business). The request for your phone number was also a HUGE nono.. and probably cause to make a serious complaint to Blizz... There's really absolutely no reason to give some random person from wow you number... And to me.. it... It doesn't seem like that person's intentions were entirely pure/honest. Out of curiosity... did the "harassment" start only after you refused to give your phone number? Cause that would especially have me suspicious... But then... I've grown quite careful. Not quite as paranoid/careful as SOME.. but definitely far more restrictive with my info than many people, or than I have been in the past.

I'd never give my realID to ANYONE I don't know in person. It's very easy to find me from the name on my WoW account (uncommon last names suck... and googling mine brings up a page from my university with my university email :/ ), and I really don't like the idea of people being able to find out... I've even had some people that I've known for a LOONG time in game, and was pretty good friends with that I denied. Because it comes down to the fact that you DON'T know who's on the other side, or what their true intentions are, no matter how much you feel you trust them... That.. plus now you just log-in with your e-mail... So that right there gives them 1 out of 2 or 3 pieces they need to get your account...

[Nightsights]

he's got issues.

i never liked the real id thing at all. have it disabled on my accounts.

[Lisaara]

I'd go off on him if he ever talked to me like that....

[Wain]

The whole situation sounds extremely creepy But I hope that's the end of it for you! At least it's a good reminder that not every friend we make online will be just as we initially think they are.

I've made some good friends on Petopia and WoW. Some I've shared RealID and even Facebook info with, but I'm usually slow to do so and only ever with people I get to know really well. Even then people can turn out not what they seem, but that happens in the real world too. You can only minimize the risks

[Morven]

That's 100% unacceptable behavior, and it's far and away from the norm or expected. I'm sorry you had such a crappy experience.

If you're reading this, dude; that's creepy, stalkery behavior. If you behave like this you will sooner or later get reported for harassment and Blizzard may ban you, which based on this behavior would be completely justified. Behaving like this in real life gets cops and restraining orders involved. It isn't acceptable in a game, either.

[Ardawen]

oh bother this is not good, i realy hope that the person who did will wake up and realize his mistake. I hope you won't have to deal with something like that again.

[Lupis]

Blech, that's awful. Hopefully he realizes he needs to start acting differently.

I use RealID a lot. I have my family on it, dur, as well as five forum friends and an old RP friend. They're all people I trust, though, and I've known them all for about a year or more. I'm very picky about my RealID otherwise, though...

[zedxrgal]

Creepy stalker is creepy.


Sorry doll. Just /ignore any and all of his toons and do your best to put it past you. Ugh. My skin crawls just reading this. Thanks for giving the heads up though in case someone on here happens to experience the same type of thing.

[Kuraine]

What a creep... That's just horrid. But if you remove him from your Real ID list, you'll vanish from his as well. And then all you have to do is block all the characters he contacts you on. I hate meeting someone who starts off as a seemingly nice person and then over time just becomes a total moron...

Like most people, I'm picky about who goes on my Real ID list. I have to have known and trusted this person for at least a few months. The only people I actually have is my boyfriend, two friends whom I'd known for years before switching realms but I still wanted to keep in contact with and a friend I'd known for a while off MMO Champion and got to know better when I coincidentally switched realms to his realm. Everyone else I meet and seems nice and friendly and whom I have occasional chats with just go straight on my friends list and nothing more. (Except one friend I made when camping Aeonaxx, I gave her my email to add me to MSN incase she found him while I wasn't online, or the other way around.)

[Ravenjules]

So sad that someone could ruin the fun of the game like this. I guess you have to be very careful.

[Royi]

If it goes anything further, I would look into reporting for harassment

[Hunteh]

That's just awfull, I totally agree with all the comments above, and I know I would just be repeating them if I told you how I feel about all this. Well, hopefully it all stopped, but it IS creepy knowing there is people out there like that, made me think about adding friends to my list, since i used to not care about adding people, like, didn't think of the consequences. Thanks for sharing this with us.

[Andine]

I bet this behaviour counts as one of the schizoid range disorders (there's more to it beyond schizophrenia).
But yeah, he was a total Richard (you know what I mean). I met a good deal of weird people in WoW in my time as well.

[Aeladrine]

I'm terribly sorry you had to deal with someone so, for lack of a better term, creeperish. You did the right thing by removing him, though.