Kinship and PM system

[saffgee]

Could someone please explain how this works - in one place and concisely - and with the appropriate disclaimers on use of all the respective settings. I searched the forums for an hour and found nothing that explained it fully. Maybe a sticky is in order - lack of knowledge is making the game anti-social.

Some questions: If I memorize someone I can't PM them, but if I add them as kin, don't I have to give them a secret to enter ? If I do, what's to stop them creating an alt and using the wilderness guide to spam into my claim when they feel like it ? If I change my secret word after every person I add, does that 'kick' that person out again, or can they just not do what I described previously ? Can't we just have an 'add to friends' toggle so we can IM them in game, without the current cumbersome system of being paranoid ? Maybe make add to friends dependent on acceptance.....

Anyway, knock yourselves out on the replies. What I'm looking for is the beginners guide to buddy lists, not the advanced 'this is what happens when you have a town' version.

[Darkside]

There is no danger in adding to kin - the only paranoia part might be that those people will know when you come online or not, but they cannot have a character teleport to your claim without your Hearth Secret.

Having your Hearth Secret will enable someone to both kin you and teleport to your claim without you being online to accept or deny it so make sure you HS is a good password

[JinxDevona]

Or keep your HS clear.

[Dallane]

Or keep your HS clear.

this.

Just use a HS when you want someone to add you. If not you end up with people spamming spawns or someone getting a free arrow to your place

[MagicManICT]

And people can only spawn at your homestead if it's a claim. You could keep your homestead as a lean-to to prevent this.

[Dallane]

And people can only spawn at your homestead if it's a claim. You could keep your homestead as a lean-to to prevent this.

True

[Mereni]

There are two ways to kin someone. Either memorize them and then right click on them again to 'make kin' or one of you uses the other's homestead secret and uses the 'make kin using homestead secret' button. If someone tries to kin you, or you try to kin them with the memorize/right click method, the other has to accept the kin, or refuse it.

There is no danger to having someone kinned. It does not let them find you. It does let them know when you are online and the more kins you have the more you get that 'name is online' system message which can get a little annoying.

Hearth secrets are somewhat dangerous if you use them wrong. If you want someone to kin you from afar you can set a hearth secret and they can kin you with it. You can then delete or change the secret with no worries. If that character has no claim set as homestead, you're safe anyway. You can own a dozen claims and as long as your actual homestead is set to a leanto, it doesn't matter if everyone on the server knows your hearth secret, you'll be okay.

You can also now describe people you have kinned or memmed to other people. Like if someone in Boston scams you, or someone is a fair trader, you can 'describe' that person to your friends (you have to be standing face to face to describe) and they will see them as if they had memorized them.