Well yes actually, that would be right thing to do from a development standpoint.
As a developer myself, I would fix something that can be used for malicious purposes like stalking. In this case, that was fixed.
If that fix causes other issues, then the right thing to do is fix those issues instead – not re-introducing the other issue again. That’s what we call a band-aid fix, and frankly it would be very negligent and lazy of SG to do that.
If the issue is that players can now keep changing their names to continue harassing alliances – then the issue isn’t in the block functionality. It never was to begin with. The fact that players had to use that function to keep tabs wasn’t a solution, it was a workaround.
What should be addressed instead is the following:
- the ability to change name repeatedly – clearly gem fee isn’t enough of a deterrent for players to spend money just to harass other players
- introduce the ability for an alliance-wide block to prevent unwanted players to rejoin the Alliance.
(I’ve suggested to staff too that these things should be looked at. We can only hope that they consider them soon
)
Ultimately, yes it does totally make sense to make more changes to address the problem many users have now. It’s more work, and it’s more time-consuming, but it’s the proper thing to do.
EDIT: in case it isn’t clear, I do agree that there’s still issues with players harassing others, and I do see how the previous function was used by those players to stay away from malicious users. But in my opinion, the best way to address the currently existing issue is directly – not via workaround through the previous block function that had room for exploitation.