An “Invisible” Online Status
tracked
Sonicgott
It would be beneficial for us to have a social status set to “invisible,” where we would be seen as offline, and, just like the red DND status, we could only join in on others when requesting.
Sometimes we need moments to ourselves, and sometimes other people don’t understand that red means “I’m busy.” Aside from also preventing services from Discord reporting that we’re in VRChat.
Say we’re working on world projects, debugging, streaming, having private moments with close friends, I believe the ability to be invisible and appear as offline would help further the security and personal well being of some players.
For a few of us who are introverted, some people will bug you despite being red, and it can be irritating. It’s not that we don’t care, it’s that we need to get some stuff done.
I understand that there are potentially negatives to this, but I feel the positives will outweigh those by quite a bit.
Invisible statuses have been seen in other messaging services in the past, such as ICQ and others.
I’d ask that you consider it. If this has already been suggested, let me know,
Justin “Sonicgott” Reese
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Ericbazinga
This is one of those features that sounds nice but would just lead to frustration. The game would become a ghost town. Just use Do Not Disturb.
Midnight_NOW
hey guys Lets make a social game... Less social... you see how dumb that is.
for social apps like "Discord, Twitter-(X), Facebook, Even Gmail" will count, you are not, all time looking at dms/email waiting for a new one to come in??? no its not made to do that, its make so you can come in a look see if anything new.
For social Games "VRChat" your playing the game your going to join ppl and talk or beat them up , your pick. and when "Ask" Got added ppl was like "yay a new way to be anit-social"
Lugzx
It's funny how many people with very stalker behavior have been msging me denouncing this feature and only making the case for why we need it lol. "You can just make another account!" "You should block them!" "You can just unfriend them!" But if you are like me and in the social circles you know how akward it can get when you join a world and someone you blocked is there complaining about being blocked by someone there that they can't see. I've even had people join my world hoping to bump into someone that unfriended them to guilt them into refriending them. It's horrible. People really shouldn't jump though hoops for a little privacy. It's when you think you're right to infringe on someone else, is more important than them having some privacy that you know your in the wrong.
Deantwo
Jake Fox
The reason an invisible mode works in messaging services is that it is the only way to truly show that you're unavailable in some cases. Showing up as idle or do not disturb will still see people leaving a message for you to look at later, versus appearing offline, where a lot less people are bound to send you something until they know you're going to be around to see it again.
Then, there's also the fact that some apps don't mark you as offline unless you fully close the application, such as the desktop version of Meta's Messenger app, which will show you as online to everyone else in your conversations, even if you've left your laptop at home before going to work, which could result in you being blasted with messages, memes, or video calls during an important meeting, and unlike most apps, Messenger still doesn't offer an option to appear as offline (or hide read receipts) in 2024.
In an environment like a video game, the whole community, as well as the way the community interacts, is vastly different. The only way you are going to have your presence noticed to begin with is when you are actively online, versus on a messaging service where someone else can see and respond to something you said hours, days, weeks, or even months later. If you're not on VRChat, you don't get notifications for VRChat until you launch the game and sign into your account and avatar. If you're set to the do not disturb status, you already don't get invite requests, anyhow.
Genuinely and truly, I can only see one real benefit to a system like this, and it would only apply if you could pick and choose who you appear as offline to, versus having it be a true status change.
A lot of people who add users to their friends list do so out out of utility/necessity versus doing so out of actual friendship. Being able to blacklist certain individuals to seeing you as offline, or whitelist certain individuals from seeing you as offline, would ensure that your actual friends can see you as being online, and ensure that everyone you added out of utility/necessity would be kept out of your personal affairs.
Amega
Jake Fox Fully agree. I would love to have ability to group contacts (and friends in VRC are essentially a contact list), and have different visibility options for them. For some I can always be in "Join me" status, for some - "Ask me", for some others - "you better don't even know I'm online" status. But in the end, I wish they made at least an "Invisible" status, even tho I'm pessimistic about even this simple feature been implemented.
DarkSwordsman
Jake Fox I actually think this is more divisive than just an offline status. This just breeds another level of deceit and likely will cause more problems than it solves.
If you don't want to be friends with someone, you can unfriend or even block them.
If you don't want people to invite you or request, you can go on red.
If someone is disrespecting your communicated boundaries, you can unfriend them, block them, and report them for harassment.
If you feel like you need to hide from someone, you can unfriend, block, report to vrchat, blast them on social media for poor behavior, blast them to your friends for poor behavior, or even call the police.
To me, going offline or even hiding your online status to certain people is simply cowardice. If you can't tell someone you have a problem with them, then you are the problem.
DarkSwordsman
I kind of disagree with this. If you're at a point where you need to be invisible to most people, but they're still your friend, why are they your friend? If someone doesn't understand what Red means, that's on them and you can remove them for disrespecting your boundaries.
It would basically kill the entire platform because I can imagine a lot of people would be utilizing this feature. It defeats the purpose of having friends.
Amega
DarkSwordsman no it does not [defeat the purpose]. IRL, we have A LOT of contacts, and friends in VRC are mostly like contacts. Not all of them are true friends. Imagine ALL of IRL contacts would know when you wake up or go to sleep, for example. Or even more: when you go outdoors etc, etc. And no, making "Ask me" or DND status is not the same. Also, VRC is about socializing, like IRL, and you are not always in good relations with everyone. It does not necessarily mean you want to "delete" them [from your contacts], but you may still want to at least hide your online status from them.
(Let alone, some, or better say many, people tend to creep after other people or spy on them, and I don't want to be the target).
It also works in reverse. I sometimes don't even want to see if some of my contacts are online. Same analogy here: I sometimes don't even want to know if some of my IRL contacts wake up or go to sleep. The less you know, the better is your sleep, as our local wisdom says.
In the end, I would heavily welcome this feature. Or maybe some more advanced feature, like "archiving" your friends, or even grouping them with separate visibility settings. IRL, our contacts is not a monolithic group of people, we tend to have significantly different groups of contacts with different interests, and often don't even want to intersect them by accident.
DarkSwordsman
Amega I actually agree with you, but I think that "offline" isn't really the solution here. I think an actual rework of the friends system should be in place. If we redefine the baseline as a "contact", and then add "friends" and "favorites" on top of that, we actually have a new paradigm. It would be a little closer to the facebook style system, which I personally prefer.
You also were just describing scenarios of the idea of someone knowing. You didn't really explain why that's an issue or why that information can be detrimental or even unsafe. Really, you didn't describe an actual problem in that entire message you sent.
I can imagine the times that I'd want to be offline from people. And you know what? That was also alongside an older version of myself that had no confidence at all and was scared of everything.
So in this case, I think it'd be fine to say: "contacts by default don't get any information or status, but friends and favorites do"
This works well alongside the new features where you can see people on the website, or I can even see people give me notifications to my phone through the android app. You could invite/request a person who is offline and they will still get it, or allow for some way to nudge them.
Either way: The point of VRChat is to be
active
. It is not the same as just a social network website or app. It's a world and universe. If you are logged in, you are logged in. I do think it could be worth it to keep contacts, to help delineate friends better. And I do agree with the concept of having different statuses depending on the favorites or not. But people shouldn't be able to just hide themselves. It defeats the purpose of the platform existing.
> Also, VRC is about socializing, like IRL, and you are not always in good relations with everyone.
This honestly just sounds like teenage drama, if I am being frank. My suggestion for this problem is to maturely resolve issues with people, or unfriend people who do not respect that. It
is
possible to be on bad terms with someone, but still understand their value and respect them as a human. If you are truly
on bad terms in a more serious way, unfriend them??SanderVR
He said everything is nois.
Flufflestuff
Only the vrchat community would have such conniptions over an online status that exists on every other social platform.
They could just go the steam route and not allow invis users to join/invite until they turn off invis so it serves its purpose as the "i super dont want anyone to bug me" status. If anyone is that terrified of the already clique infested community here may get ruined.
Smash-ter
This feature honestly would make this game not only more toxic, but extremely confusing for a lot of people. Like, imagine you got an invite request and the person who requested was shown as offline. "Where did the invite come from? did they send it from the website or are they in game? Is my friends list broken or something because I don't really see them on." And on your point of you working on something when you're working on worlds or avatars from what I can tell you don't receive any requests when you're on red if i'm not mistaken, so sitting in an invite only instance by yourself to test things in game while on red is fine. I feel this would be a useless feature and no one would really like it when it becomes a thing.
Casuallynoted
Smash-ter All I know is I'mma bust out the tequila when it becomes a thing
Smash-ter
Casuallynoted question is, who would you celebrate with when your friends list is as dry as the sahara?
Casuallynoted
Smash-ter I’ve been here since 2016, when the most players you’d get was 10-15 on a Saturday and no one any other day of the week, trust me when I say the question you’ve asked is incredibly unrealistic.
I’ve also been in this app long enough to know that the community latches onto non-issues and turns them into villains of the month. In 2017, it was the user rank system turning VRC into a caste society. Then Avatar performance metrics stifling creativity and allowing people to be bullied for expressing themselves. SDK 2 getting phased out. The removal of mods, Easy AntiCheat, the list goes on and on. And despite the amount of supposedly game breaking changes being introduced to this platform it continues to exist and thrive. I don’t really see the point in catastrophising this app’s continued growth and change because it feels like I’m in a time loop every single time this happens.
So to answer your question, I’ll be celebrating with my friends- who are also looking forward to VRC getting a much-needed privacy feature.
Dormamu, I’ve come to make a bargain.
DarkSwordsman
Smash-ter This is actually a great point. I used to request a friend from VRCX while I was offline because I wanted to determine if I should get on. They would reply to me that they are busy, but they may then 20 minutes later try to invite me and see me offline.
Granted, there were things we both could do to resolve that issue, but I know not to request off them while I'm offline unless I message them on Discord first. I.E: Being able to go offline would make that problem
way
worse for them, and I understand their frustration.DarkSwordsman
Casuallynoted
"And despite the amount of supposedly game breaking changes being introduced to this platform it continues to exist and thrive."
Well, the reason EAC is less of an issue now is because they replaced some of the basic features mods allowed within about half a year of the community absolutely raging against them and there being a huge drop on their steam page rating. They were getting bad press so they actually fixed and added things to stop people from getting angry.
Offline status genuinely does not add anything useful to the game. It just makes division even more acceptable. It further pushes people away from being social, which is the entire purpose of this game and LITERALLY is in the name.
If I knew my friends were going offline, I'd probably remove them. The uncertainty of not knowing if my friends are online or not is just not healthy. It introduces doubt and confusion for this veil of security and privacy. If you want security and privacy, there are three great features that already exist: 1) DnD 2) Unfriend 3) Block
CyberSyo
This is going to make VRChat seem like such a desolate and dead place. The red and orange status already does everything we need it to. Having an offline mode will decrease communication and players interacting with one another. It's not benefitting anyone.
Amega
CyberSyo No. It'll benefit a lot, because it's still a privacy concern. Without "Invisible" status everybody can see that you're online (even outside VRChat, actually). Do you always want the rest of the world to know that you're currnently playing VRChat? I doubt, because otherwise you'd have to negate privacy in general.
Wouldn't it be nice if all of your RL contacts knew when you went to the pool or football match, for example? /s
As for the decreased communication... It makes no sense. Because otherwise you then also need to remove the other statuses except "Online" and "Join me". About 80% of my contacts have "Ask me" status anyway. Because why? Because they keep their privacy, they don't want to interact with all of their contacts every time. And that's totally OK. "Invisible" status does not differ from them in this context.
DarkSwordsman
Amega
I want to try really hard to not sound awful here, but this is honestly what I think when I read this:
1) You basically said "nuh uh"
2) I do want people to know I'm online when I'm online :)
3) "I doubt" yeah, you lost your privacy when you used the internet
4) "Wouldn't it be nice if all of your RL contact knew when you..." Have you heard of Facebook?
5) "It makes no sense... because I said so"
6) "you then also need to remove..." What?
7) "Because they keep their privacy" So first, not having offline was a privacy concern, but now Orange and Red status are a way to maintain privacy?
Lastly: Invisible status DOES differ
When someone is offline, I know they are offline. This serves a useful purpose: I can decide if I want to get off and I know they aren't available so I can focus on other things.
If we then changed the definition of what being "offline" means, we lose that function. I can never truly know if my friends are online, and why even have a friend then? It also is the antithesis of VRChat's new website/android statuses, where it shows someone as active but not on the game.
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