Anyone Who would like to be my friend??Follow

^^

You should probably hit that little edit button and remove your email address before it's too late. You just sent your email address to A LOT of people. Tell them to send you a PM.

Some of the best in-game relationships are formed while in the field.

While adventuring around you may happen across someone that is pleasent and friendly and seems to work well with you.

The next time you log on you also notice that person in the same zones doing the same thing. You send him a /tell, group again, and have another good round of adventuring.

Now you decide to put this person on your buddy list so you know when he logs in and you can meet up to do more adventuring. He does the same, and you get a "pop" sound of a /tell as soon as you log in.

You congradulate each other on accomplishments and quests, and help each other to get things done that you can't do yourself. Ding! Gratz!

But as with all forms of communication with the Internet, there is a dark side...

- You don't know who this person is.
- You don't know their background.
- You don't know what they really want.
- Just because they play a cute elf girl with pig-tails doesn't mean that's what they are in real life.
- People will take their time to slowly work there way into your trust. It may take weeks or months.

Online Safety Tips:

- Never give out your real name, parents names, address, age, where you go to school, sex, or credit card information. No-one playing the game needs this information...for ANY reason.

- Never give out your account login or password. Even SOE says they will never ask for that information from you.

- Never begin talking about personal issues like sex, drugs, or school and family problems. Someone may try to get you to "open up" in order to gain more information.

- Parents, don't let your kids use the Internet in the seclusion of a bedroom, garage, or any out of the way place where the monitor is not in full view at all times.

- Parents, know what your kids are doing online.

- Parents, know what kind of online policy is in place at your childs friends house.

If any of these happen while your playing the game, there are a few things you can do:
- Tell your parents.
- Stop talking and interacting with the person immediately.
- Put them on your /ignore list.
- Report them to SOE. If you let it slide they will do it again to someone else.
- Take a screen capture (PRT SC button). This will take a picture of the chat window text.

Keep in mind that the obvious dangerous extremes above are not the more common jerks we see in /ooc chat having a flame war about something dumb.

Not to cast a shadow on the whole subject, but I felt a few tips out in the open would be good. Have fun in the game! Stay smart and stay safe. :)

Here and here are some good links about online safety.